


if i ruin this (i can live with it)

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, Dennis POV, Disordered Eating, Dissociation, Emotional Manipulation, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Rape/Non-con, Slow Burn, Suicidal Ideation, Therapy, Toxic Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-15 05:05:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17522471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: “Dennis,” Dr. Eddy says, still writing, still smiling. “I want you to take some work home with you from this session.” She finally looks up at him and nods encouragingly. Dennis can’t help the way his eyes roll all the way back into his head.“Great,” he mutters.“I want you to track your impulses,” she says. “I want you to track your impulses and I want you to put the intention behind that impulse in one of two categories.”She stands, goes to her desk. She opens a drawer and pulls out a second notebook. She opens it to the first page and begins to write in it. Then, she comes to Dennis, stops right in front of him and presents the journal to him, still opened.She’s drawn a table. A question looms at the top of the page: What is my intention with this action? And there are only two columns. One labeled growth and the other: stagnation.—Dennis decides that there should be a third column: destruction.





	1. part one.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first foray into Always Sunny fic. There’s a lot to unpack here folks! 
> 
> So, essentially, this piece startsoff some time just after Time’s Up for the Gang and goes through to Mac Finds His Pride and into what might come afterward. 
> 
> Canon-typical warnings, for the most part here. Especially in part one. It is Dennis-POV, so please be aware and careful and heed the tags and warnings! There is a bit of a dubious sexual encounter between Dennis and Mac that ends pretty much before it starts, but just so you’re all aware. 
> 
> There is a passing mention of Mrs. Klinsky in part one. It’s the only time it comes up, but please keep it in mind before reading. I’ve tagged as much as I can, and will add more, as needed. 
> 
> This is written into three parts. The next two parts are still going through some edits. But it’s likely that part two will be posted by next Wednesday, and part three the Wednesday after that. 
> 
> Oh, also, title is from Appointments by Julien Baker. Which is just too much for me right, writing this fic. 
> 
> Thank you all so much in advance for reading! Any kudos/comments/bookmarks are so incredibly appreciated!

**i. stagnation**

 

Dennis tells Mac that he needs to stop touching him — it’s never going to happen — and Mac actually  _ stops _ . It’s jarring and unexpected, and Dennis pretends to be happy about it. Pretends that he doesn’t notice the moments where Mac  _ would _ and  _ should _ be touching him. Pretends to not have noticed the pattern of Mac’s touches: coming mostly when he’s too excited or praising something Dennis has said or done. 

Dennis finds himself making remarks he knows Mac would find funny, hoping he might just forget that Dennis asked him to stay away. But he doesn’t. He never slips up. He leaves Dennis haunted by fleeting touches that he has to imagine day in and day out. 

“What did you think was going to happen?” Mandy asks him over the phone. She’s in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Dennis can hear that in the way her voice becomes distant and distracted when she has to do something a little more complicated. She’s also listening to a Leonard Cohen greatest hits compilation in the background that Dennis immediately registers as ‘cooking music’. “That’s what people should do, Dennis,” she continues. “When you ask someone to stop touching you or flirting with you, they should stop.”

“I…” Then Dennis trails off, before he can give his instinctual answer. Which is, of course,  _ stop never really means stop _ , not in his experience. 

“Dennis?” Mandy prompts. 

“I don’t know,” Dennis answers truthfully. He  _ doesn’t _ know. “I didn’t think he’d actually  _ listen _ to me.”

“Why not?” She persists, and Dennis feels his throat close up. 

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he says, instead of offering an answer. “Things are just different, okay? They’re really different. Everything about Philly was supposed to stay the exact same.”

“You were gone six months, Dennis,” Mandy says gently. 

“So?” Dennis balks back. “Six months shouldn’t make that much of a difference.”

He hears Mandy sigh on the other line. He finds himself rolling his eyes, probably mirroring her. They’re one hell of a pair; on the same page more often than Dennis ever thought would be possible. 

She’s irritated and tired and willing to do just about anything to change the subject. And Dennis doesn’t blame her. 

“Have you been seeing that therapist Dr. Andrews recommended?” She says. Dennis feels his blood start to boil. “The one with the office right by your apartment?”

“No,” he says through gritted teeth. 

Dennis had been seeing someone. In North Dakota. For the first time in his miserable life. Dr. Nina Andrews. Dennis hated going to see her, but she was alright. Mostly, he just hated that Mandy had forced him into it. He’d never been forced into  _ anything _ in his life. (He conveniently selects to forget the Mrs. Klinsky situation and the prostitution with Frank. Those are things to  _ always _ selectively forget.) Hell, he’d even skipped the first few sessions, claiming he’d been, and spent weeks screening Mandy’s calls as best he could, meaning to intercept any questions about his whereabouts from the clinic. It was exhausting. 

Eventually, it became less exhausting to just  _ go _ . 

“I think you should,” she says quickly. Going for flippant, but sounding more nervous than anything. She keeps talking so Dennis doesn’t have the chance to refute. He  _ wants _ to. God, he wants to, but then she says: “I want to bring Brian Jr. to Philadelphia for a visit.” So Dennis wires his jaw shut. “And I just want to make sure he’ll get the best you he can get.”

He stuffs down the impulse to accuse her of manipulating him, swallows it down hard until it no longer exists. 

“I’ll see if I can set up an appointment,” he mumbles. 

“Good,” she says, before she starts to hum along with whatever song is playing. “That’s good.”

 

—

 

It’s Dr. Karen Eddy. The one with the office near Dennis’ apartment. She isn’t as warm as Dr. Andrews had been. And her favourite thing to do is leave the room hanging in empty silence until Dennis can’t take it anymore and he runs his mouth just to hear his own voice. She doesn’t get much out of him in their first session. Well, she gets a lot of words, but nothing really  _ significant _ . He talks about Mandy, mostly. And his move back to Philly. It isn’t much in terms of the deep, abysmal black hole that is Dennis Reynolds. But Dr. Eddy doesn’t seem to mind. She watches him calmly, simply intimating:  _ there’s always time _ . 

She does pinpoint Dennis’ resistance to and discomfort with change pretty early on. But that isn’t surprising. It’s one of the first things Dr. Andrews had noticed too. Dennis has to wonder if they’d shared notes on him beforehand, and that makes his skin crawl. 

“Who  _ likes _ change?” Dennis asks, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Things are always easier if you know exactly how they’re supposed to go. That way there’s no room for error.”

“For error?” She asks. “Well, that’s just a part of life, Dennis. Mistakes happen. Things don’t always go the way we plan.”

“Nah,” he says simply, dismissively, ignoring the way that he’s holding his breath and clenching his jaw as hard as he can. 

She smiles at him gently, then looks down at her notes, adding something near the bottom of the page. Dennis leans forward, peering down at her lap to try and catch a glimpse at the notebook on her knee. 

“What are you writing?” He asks and hates the way his voice sounds when he does. “I didn’t even say anything interesting.”

“Dennis,” she says, still writing, still smiling. “I want you to take some work home with you from this session.” She finally looks up at him and nods encouragingly. Dennis can’t help the way his eyes roll all the way back into his head. 

“Great,” he mutters.

“I want you to track your impulses,” she says. 

“Everything I do is an impulse,” he says back. 

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she returns, but continues down her train of thought nonetheless. “I want you to track your impulses and I want you to put the intention behind that impulse in one of two categories.” She pauses, waits for some sort of indication from Dennis that he’s actually listening. 

“I can promise you,” Dennis says instead. “That my intentions are far too complicated to fit into two categories.”

“Can you try?” She asks. Dennis rolls his eyes again, so she repeats: “Dennis?”

“Yes,” he answers petulantly, thinking of Brian. Jr and Brian Jr. only. 

“Wonderful,” Karen says, smiling joyfully. She stands, goes to her desk. She opens a drawer and pulls out a second notebook. She opens it to the first page and begins to write in it. Then, she comes to Dennis, stops right in front of him and presents the journal to him, still opened. 

She’s drawn a table. She’s hadn’t used a ruler, none of the lines are even straight. A question looms at the top of the page:  _ What is my intention with this action? _ And there are only two columns. One labeled  _ growth _ and the other:  _ stagnation _ . 

Dennis bites down the impulse to call the journal lame. Feign disinterest and claim the thing will be lost in less than a week. Instead, he smiles bitterly and takes the journal from her. 

“Sounds fun,” he manages. 

 

—

 

Dennis doesn’t lose the journal within the first week. But it  _ is _ still pretty lame. Mostly because the  _ stagnation _ column has filled up to two pages, while the  _ growth _ column remains at two points: ‘1) Seeing Dr. Eddy’, and ‘2) Keeping this stupid journal’. 

Then, Frank flakes on him about the  _ Range Rover _ , and Dennis tries to see this as an opportunity rather than a total loss of identity. He adds: ‘3) I bought a  _ Prius’ _ to the his  _ growth _ column. It doesn’t feel as good as it should, so adds to the stagnation column (now onto it’s third page): ‘82) I hate my fucking  _ Prius’ _ . 

But it’s  _ different _ . And different has to make room for growth, right? Dennis tries to imprint that on his own skin as he mourns the loss of another part of his soul. 

Then, he meets Jon, who’d mistook him for his Uber driver. Who smiles warmly to strangers, who plays fantasy baseball with friends who  _ actually enjoy _ his company. It all feels so normal and right, that Dennis allows himself to be lost in it. He starts to play fantasy leagues too. He writes: ‘6) I wore a snapback’ into his journal, and he hopes Dr. Eddy will see that as the progress he views it as. 

Then, Frank is here, embarrassed of what Dennis has just been learning to see as  _ progress _ , and he drives him back towards old impulses. Impulses that belong in  _ Paddy’s Pub _ , and nowhere else. He drives him back into the D.E.N.N.I.S. system, but it’s as if whoever it was who had created the system in the first place no longer exists in this Dennis’ body. At least not here, in Economy Jon’s kitchen, with Tara, a girl Dennis knows is off-limits. (When had limits ever become a part of his pick-up game? And what was so wrong with them? There’s a limit to everything, isn’t there?)

Anyway, Frank’s attempt to push him back into the Dennis Reynolds Frank had reared is a colossal failure. It’s inarticulately horrifying, and Dennis wonders if he will ever be able to talk to a girl who isn’t Mandy or Dee again. 

Dennis makes a mental note to add: ‘I listened to Frank’ to his stagnation column. 

But then, Frank is gone. And Dennis is alone again with Jon and his friends. And Tara never brings up their disastrous encounter in the kitchen. She lets it pass, and Dennis feels his breaths start to become deeper and more relaxed. 

 

—

 

He’s home at a respectable time. And he’s had a respectable number of beers. He feels warm and drunk, but the threat of a black-out hasn’t even crossed his mind. He sits down on the couch and flips it to a sports channel to catch some highlights. He settles in, draping a blanket over his lap and lays his head down on the arm of the couch. 

And that’s exactly how Mac finds him when the guy finally stumbles home. Hanging out with Charlie-level drunk. 

He means to go straight to the kitchen, but catches himself half-way through the living room, then points to the television, frowning emphatically. 

“You watching sports, dude?” He asks. 

“Yeah,” Dennis answers from the couch. 

“Why?” Mac asks. 

Dennis shrugs. “I like sports.”

“Since when?” Mac demands accusingly. He steps towards the couch, hitching his hands on his hips. 

“Since always?” Dennis returns, propping up on his elbows, twisting at the waist to look over the arm of the couch at Mac. 

“You always make fun of me because I like sports too much,” Mac continues. 

“Are we really going to fight about this, Mac?” Dennis asks, sitting up properly. “Because if we are, I’ll change the damn channel.”

“Whatever, dude,” Mac mumbles. He turns back towards the kitchen. “It’s just weird, that’s all.”

Dennis feels something suddenly start to run hot in his bloodstream. “What’s weird?” He asks. 

Now at the sink, filling a glass with water, Mac shakes his head, keeping his back turned to Dennis. “Nothing, man,” he mutters. Then, he turns to the fridge, opens it. “You want a beer?”

“No,” Dennis asks. 

That gives Mac pause. “Why not?”

“Because I’ve had five today, Mac,” Dennis answers with exasperation. “And I’m not trying to get belligerent on a Tuesday night.”

“Well,  _ excuse me _ ,” Mac starts, sounding just as belligerent as Dennis had been avoiding. He continues through a hiccup, “for wanting to make every night a good night.” Dennis rolls his eyes. He starts to stand, but doesn’t have the time to answer, before Mac gasps indignantly. 

“What the hell is this?” He asks. 

“What?” Dennis asks, edging closer to the fridge to see whatever it is Mac might be referring to. 

Then, Mac is stepping away from the fridge, holding up a cold bottle of  _ Coors _ . 

“ _ This _ ,” he says, as if that explains anything. 

“That’s a beer, Mac,” Dennis says. “You know what that is.”

“It’s  _ Coors _ ,” Mac clarifies. 

Dennis shrugs helplessly. He needs more here. “Okay?”

“Since when do you drink  _ Coors _ ? You’ve never bought  _ Coors _ . It’s only a got a 5% alcohol content,” Mac continues, rambling. 

“Jesus Christ, dude,” Dennis says, shaking his head. “You don’t like my brand, maybe you should start buying your own beer.”

“But that’s the thing, Dennis,” Mac counters. And Dennis has a disturbing thought: is this how all their conversations are? “It  _ isn’t _ your brand. It isn’t your brand, you’re watching sports, and you’re down to five beers a day. You’ve changed, bro,” Mac accuses, and Dennis feels something crack and ignite somewhere deep in his gut. 

“I’ve changed?” Dennis repeats. He steps closer to Mac. 

“Yes,” Mac returns, puffing his chest upward. 

“I haven’t changed!” Dennis says, forgetting about all the points he’d littered his  _ growth _ column with. He feels himself suddenly reverting back to something he’d been before: petrified of changing, petrified of allowing the people around him to change too. He falls back into it so easily, he knows that Dr. Eddy will have to laugh at him. But he doesn’t care. Right now, he doesn’t care. “I came back to Philly and  _ everyone _ was different! You weren’t supposed to…” He trails off, not really knowing where he’s going with this. 

“Not supposed to what, Dennis?” Mac asks. “Adapt? Well, we had to! Because you were here, and then  _ one minute later _ , you were gone! You left state! What were we supposed to do?”

Dennis suddenly thinks of Dee. The last text she’d sent him before he came back to Philadelphia.  _ We’re doing fine here without you. Asshole.  _ Then, the message just above it:  _ I can’t believe you left me here with Mac and Charlie. Just let me know you aren’t dead. _

He’d fallen full-force into his life with Mandy and Brian Jr. He’d thought that was best. He thought that he should cut off all ties to his life before North Dakota. Before being a father. He’d left them all no choice but to adapt. What  _ had _ he expected? 

“What were we supposed to do?” He hears Mac repeat emphatically. “Because,  _ clearly _ , moving on wasn’t an option, but neither was  _ missing you _ .” He catches Mac’s eye for just a second, before Mac looks down at his feet. He shakes his head tiredly. “I seem to remember you shitting on me for that one too, dude.”

Dennis sighs. The room hangs quiet except for the sportscaster on the television. It’s muddying this whole thing. Dennis feels the urge to apologize flit somewhere behind his eyes, and he thinks of Dr. Eddy.  _ What is my intention? _ It’s maybe the only time an impulse of his has been  _ a good thing _ . Most of the things he’d counted as  _ growth _ had stemmed from him ignoring the need the stagnate. But this one had been different. This one had been good from the start. It makes the inside of Dennis’ mouth taste bitter, but he knows he has to follow this. 

So, he says something he’s never said to Mac before: “I’m sorry.”

And it freezes them both. Mac looks up at him and actually stops breathing. 

“What?” He asks. 

Dennis feels clawing hands at the base of his throat. He chews on his lip and looks anywhere but at Mac. He shakes his head. “Don’t make me say it again,” he mumbles. 

“I want you to,” Mac says defiantly. 

Dennis feels sick to his stomach. There’s something rising inside of him, closing his throat up as it goes. He pushes the words through, just to see if he can jog something loose and breathe properly again. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. A little less sure this time. 

That seems to make Mac be able to breath again. Dennis isn’t as lucky. Mac takes one heaving breath, prepares himself for his inevitable answer. He looks Dennis right in the eye and says: “Well, I don’t accept that.”

And Dennis feels whatever air he’d had left leave his system, until he feels the need to claw at the collar of his shirt to alleviate some of this pressure. 

Silently, Mac leaves him. In the quiet of their living room, unable to move, Dennis listens to Mac go to his room, then close and lock his door behind him. 

 

—

 

Mac is still asleep when Dennis wakes up the following morning. And he’s glad for it. Because he feels hollowed out and  _ different _ . 

So, instead of waiting, he does what feels like his only real option: he throws himself back into his life with Economy Jon. The stable,  _ normal _ life he’d allowed himself to create there. But it feels hollow too. Missing something important and significant that Dennis can’t help but think is something that Mac had been able to inject into his old life. Dee and Charlie, too. 

But too much has  _ changed _ . If Mac or Dee or Charlie had ever felt that way about him, they certainly couldn’t feel that way now. Not after the six months he’d spent amputated and barely breathing in North Dakota. 

Jon is enough. Whatever fulfillment he finds here  _ has to be enough _ . 

But then Jon sends him out to the garage for beer and Dennis sees it: the ‘93  _ Range Rover _ . Army green. Exactly the way Dennis remembers her. Dennis feels something crack in his chest. Then, something begins to blossom from those cracks. He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing, but it’s the only real thing he’s felt all day. So he lets himself be wrapped up in it’s vines. He takes the  _ Rover _ . He feels like himself again. Like nothing’s changed. 

 

—

 

Karen is quiet as she reviews Dennis’ journal at his next session. Dennis’ foot bounces incessantly and he swears he can taste blood in his mouth. Finally, she shuts the notebook and takes a deep breath. 

“All of this happened within a week?” She finally asks, and Dennis suddenly feels as though he can breathe again. 

“I told you everything I do is an impulse,” he defends. 

“You did,” she allows. She passes the journal back to him. “And I think I followed most of it. Except for one.”

“You followed  _ all of that _ ?” Dennis asks, going for nonchalance. “I don’t give you enough credit.”

“Number nine in the growth column: ‘I apologized to Mac’. What did you apologize to him for?” She asks. “And why did that feel like growth?”

“Because we don’t apologize to each other,” he says quickly. He crosses his arms over his chest. “I tried something new. It didn’t work, by the way. So. Thanks for that.”

“It didn’t work?” Dr. Eddy asks. 

“It didn’t work,” Dennis repeats. “He didn’t forgive me, or whatever.”

“Do you think he owes you that?” She continues. 

Dennis hugs his arms around himself a little tighter. “No,” he manages. 

Karen nods, then shrugs. “Do you think he will? Eventually?”

Dennis says, “uhhh”, around a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know,” he says. “He usually does?”

“Does it feel different this time?” She pesters. 

“ _ Everything _ feels different.” Dennis takes a deep breath, one second to recompose himself. “But you already knew that.”

“Why do you think he’s having a hard time accepting your apology?” She asks. 

“I don’t know,” Dennis returns petulantly. “I can’t read his goddamn mind.”

“You don’t have to,” she says back calmly. And it drives Dennis crazy. “I said: ‘why do you think’.” 

Dennis rolls his eyes at the semantics. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters. 

“Okay, okay,” Dr. Eddy begins again, trying to tackle this from another direction. “Why don’t you answer my first question: what exactly were you apologizing for?”

“For leaving,” Dennis answers, shrugging. “For going to North Dakota to look after my kid.”

“For leaving,” Karen says, rolling the words over her tongue, considering them completely. 

“He’s got abandonment issues, okay?’ Dennis all-but-explodes. “Everyone he thinks loves him ends up not giving a shit about him and I just added myself to that list.”

“Added yourself?” Dr. Eddy asks. “You don’t care about your friend?”

“No,” Dennis stammers. “Of course, I…”

“He ‘thought’ you loved him,” she continues. “Did you?”

Dennis feels his whole body go cold, as something short-circuits in his brain. He suddenly feels semi-detached from his own body. He’s had this feeling before. And it only get worse before it gets better. 

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Dennis hears himself say. 

“Okay,” Dr. Eddy responds, but he can barely hear her. He can’t even imagine what she looks like. 

Dennis doesn’t know how much longer he stays. He doesn’t know what route he takes back to his apartment. He doesn’t know how long it takes for the sun to go down on him while he’s sitting out on the couch, watching something that used to be  _ Law & Order _ . 

He doesn’t even know if Mac had been home when he’d arrived, or if he’d come back later, but Mac’s suddenly next to him on the couch, gently putting a glass of water in Dennis’ hand, prompting him to lift it to his lips. 

“Den?” That’s Mac’s voice, and it’s the first thing he’s heard all afternoon. “Den?” He says again, until Dennis slowly turns his head towards him. “You should eat something, okay?”

Dennis nods, knowing full-well he won’t. “Okay,” he mumbles back. 

Then, Mac’s hand is at the base of his neck, just where it meets his shoulder. It’s familiar, but so  _ different _ . Distant, in a way Dennis has never felt in Mac’s hands. He’s holding back. And Dennis had made him. Dennis lets out a shuddering breath and looks down at his hands in a heap in his lap. 

“What happened?” Mac asks softly. Experience laced through his voice. “What started it this time?”

Dennis takes a deep breath, tries to root himself, outwards from the skin underneath Mac’s hand. His warmth and weight is the only thing grounding him back towards some semblance of reality. “I started talking to someone,” Dennis says. His voice is hoarse with disuse. Beside him, Mac stiffens slightly. He doesn’t even say the word ‘therapist’, but the grandeur isn’t lost on Mac. “We talked about something I didn’t want to talk about.”

He feels Mac squeeze his shoulder gently, then his fingers splay out further and he runs his hand down towards Dennis’ bicep. 

“That’s good, man,” Mac says. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Dennis blinks, long and slow, and feels more like himself than he has in a long time. He nods, offers a small smile, out the corner of his mouth. 

Then, Mac pats his knee and is standing and it feels like something vital has been stripped away. He tries to swallow down the panic that follows, but it doesn’t disappear. It just keeps growing and growing until Dennis can feel it straight down into his fingertips. He stands, and Mac is already shouldering into a jacket. His knees buckle slightly as he takes a step around the couch. He steadies himself on the arm, while the blackness in his eyes slowly recedes backward to light. 

“Where are you going?” Dennis asks. 

Mac pauses, looks over his shoulder awkwardly. “I had plans,” he says. He doesn’t offer to cancel them, even though he knows Dennis wants him to. 

“With who?” Dennis asks. 

Mac clears his throat, starts to toe at their hardwood floor. “It’s a date, actually,” he mumbles. 

“Oh,” Dennis manages. 

Mac sighs, tries to keep the way his chin hangs down towards his chest muted, but Dennis can tell he’s disappointed.  _ This is it _ , Dennis thinks.  _ This is when he caves _ . Dennis holds his breath, waits for Mac to say those magic words:  _ I’ll stay with you _ . 

But instead, he chews on his lip. Says: “So, uh. So, I should go.” 

An empty apartment sends a chill up Dennis’ spine. The room hangs silently and he can’t imagine being left alone inside of it. His blood feels too hot underneath his skin. Everything feels  _ too much _ . Like it’s all about to spin and vibrate out of control.

And Mac is turning on his heel, meaning to leave.

“No, wait,” Dennis hears himself say. He feels himself lose more and more control over his own body. His head and his body separate so far that it feels as though he’s watching and listening to an exact copy of himself. “Mac, don’t,” he continues, filling the space between them. Mac doesn’t stop him, but he doesn’t meet him in the middle either. 

Dennis wraps his hand around Mac’s wrist. He feels Mac try to pull it away, but all that Dennis can think is:  _ don’t leave me alone here _ . He pulls Mac closer and kisses him. Kisses him like his life depends on it, because maybe it does. And for a moment, Mac leans into it. He gives into it all and Dennis thinks he has him. He puts his hands on either side of Mac’s face gently and holds him there. Then, he feels Mac’s hands on his chest. Gently, too, at first. But then Mac’s pushing him away and he’s stronger than Dennis has ever been, so it’s  _ easy.  _

He peels himself away from Dennis, looking down at him incredulously. “What are you doing?” He asks, still close enough that Dennis can feel his breath on his cheek. 

Dennis presses fluttering kisses along Mac’s jawline and neck, allowing his fingers to tangle through the hair at the nape of his neck. “What do I have to do?” He asks against Mac’s throat. “What do I have to do to make you stay?”

“Den…” Mac mutters, but then Dennis feels Mac’s hand on his waist. And he takes that as permission. He presses Mac up against the door, then he pauses, looks up at him. Mac’s eyes are shiny, pupils blown wide. His lips are wet and already redder. He loves when Mac looks at him like this. He’s missed it. 

Dennis kisses him again. Hoping somehow, that if he just touches Mac enough, he’ll get all the pieces of himself back that he’s lost. He can already feel his own heart beating behind his rib cage. That’s new. That’s  _ because of Mac _ . 

Dennis presses his thigh between Mac’s legs. Mac pulls away just long enough to gasp gently. Then, he presses his forehead against Dennis’, both breathing deeply, against one another’s skin. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” Mac whispers. 

“Why not?” Dennis asks, keeping his voice just as low. 

“Because,” Mac stammers. He shakes his head and Dennis feels his hands start to fall away from his waist. “Because you don’t want it.”

Dennis puts a hand on top of Mac’s holding it against his own hip. He presses a soft kiss to the corner of Mac’s mouth, then trails a few more along his jawline, towards the soft skin just beneath his ear. “Since when do you know what I want?”

Mac digs his fingers deeper against Dennis’ skin, squeezing at the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “Since you told me,” he says, his voice soft and sad. 

Dennis shakes his head, then sets his hands on either side of Mac’s face, running his thumb across Mac’s cheekbone. “And you actually believed me?”

“ _ Yes,”  _ Mac implores, and pushes Dennis an inch away from him. It isn’t much of a fight, but it’s more than Dennis had been expecting. He  _ shouldn’t _ be fighting this. He  _ should _ want this. He should want to  _ stay _ . So Dennis closes that newfound space between them, grinding himself against Mac. Mac sighs, but he doesn’t push Dennis away this time. 

So Dennis decides he has to run with that. He slots his hand between their bodies, feeling just how hard he’s made Mac with the palm of his hands. Mac mutters a few curse words under his breath, lets his head fall backward to rest against the door behind him. It leaves his throat open and exposed and Dennis takes advantage of it. He starts to suck and bite at the spot on Mac’s neck he knows drives Mac crazy. Mac goes pliant and whiny beneath him. 

“Well, now I want  _ you _ ,” Dennis says against Mac’s skin, making him shudder. Without pulling away, without looking, Dennis works at Mac’s belt and fly, opening the front of his pants so he can get his hand closer to Mac’s skin. He’s just as warm and frantic with anticipation as Mac is too. 

Gently, Dennis lifts Mac’s head away from the door. Leaving his hand at the nape of Mac’s neck, he pulls Mac forward, kissing him roughly. Mac opens his mouth to him, and Dennis knows he’s got him. He feels something crack in his chest. He shudders against Mac’s lips. He has him… He has him… He has him because Dennis  _ wants him _ . Things suddenly don’t feel like a game anymore and his heart quickens in his chest. He pulls away just far enough to whisper: “I want you to stay…”

“Den, I…”

“No,” Dennis says, then kisses Mac again, cutting off that thought where it lies. Before Mac can protest any more, Dennis drops slowly to his knees. He hears Mac mutter a soft, genuinely shocked: “whoa…”, then Mac’s hands are in his hair, tangling through the curls Dennis knows he loves. 

Dennis hooks his fingers through Mac’s belt loops. He means to tug them down quickly, but he steals a glance upward, up at Mac who’s looking right down at him. His eyes are wide, forlorn and… Fuck,  _ grateful _ . Dennis feels a tremor ripple through his entire body. His muscles tense and he suddenly begins to panic: how do you breathe? He doesn’t remember. 

“Dennis?” Mac asks, hitching his index finger under Dennis’ chin. 

Dennis pulls away, keeps his eyes on the hardwood between Mac’s shoes. He wraps his hand around Mac’s calf, aiming to ground himself, but he’s actually really just keeping himself upright. He’s light-headed; breathless and wavering. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dennis manages, his voice shaking on every word. 

“Like what?” Mac asks. 

“You know,” Dennis says, his voice more bitter and venomous than he thought it could at such short notice. His chest heaves up and down. Anger is bubbling to the surface. It always does when it needs to cover up an emotion that’s a little more complex. Dennis’ vulnerability, his position on the floor in front of Mac; it all makes him feel cold, so he makes his words match the blood under his skin. “You know what you did,” he adds viciously. 

Mac has his hands on Dennis’ shoulder. He’s pushing him away. 

“It became too real for you, huh?” Mac asks, balling the collar of Dennis shirt in a fist. He keeps pushing, enough that Dennis has to shuffle backward to stop himself from falling on his ass. 

“Fuck you,” Dennis mumbles because he can’t think of anything else to say when his head is swimming like this. 

“Fuck  _ you _ , Dennis,” Mac is saying, but Dennis barely listens to him. He only notices the way that Mac is buttoning his jeans with shaky hands and working at his belt, angrily and uncoordinated. Dennis feels Mac’s knee connect with his chest and that’s enough to send him toppling back onto his haunches. He looks up at Mac, who’s pawing at the mark on his Dennis left there, red with embarrassment. “I’m gonna be late,” he says, fuming. 

He pulls the door open just wide enough to allow himself to slip through and he slams the door behind him before Dennis has a second to dart forward and try to stop him. 

Dennis listens to his angry footsteps disappear down the hallway, then the only sound he’s left with are his own shallow breaths reverberating off the walls that suddenly feel as though they’re coming closer and closer, apathetic to the way they’ll crush every bone in his body if they don’t stop. 

 

—

 

Mac doesn’t come home. Dennis spends the night in the bathroom. 

 

—

 

The following morning, Dennis finds himself staring down at the bar in front of him more often than not. Frank, Dee, and Charlie are squawking somewhere behind him, coming up with some half-laced plan about making a  _ Paddy’s  _ Pride float to market themselves more to the gay crowd. Ignoring entirely that they don’t even  _ need _ to market themselves to the gay crowd. They were the most popular gay bar in Philly for a whole week, after all. 

The second those dudes down at  _ The Rainbow _ hear that  _ Paddy’s _ is gay again, and that Dennis is still tending bar, they’ll all come rushing back. 

“Dennis?” That’s Dee. She sounds annoyed. 

“What?” Dennis asks, keeping his eyes forward. 

“Are you even listening?” She balks. 

“No,” Dennis answers honestly. 

“Shit, dude,” Charlie mutters, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “You mean we have to start all over?”

“No, no, no,” Dee says. “We’re not doing that. Dennis, just convince Mac that he needs to dance on top of our float.” Slowly, Dennis turns on his bar stool, his eyebrows raised incredulously. “That’s your only part in this plan.”

“I am not doing that,” he says. 

“What?’ Charlie asks, his voice characteristically high. “Why not?”

“Yeah, Dennis,” Frank tacks on. “Why not?”

“ _ Because _ ,” Dennis says before he realizes he doesn’t actually have an argument. None of them allow that to lie. They just continue to watch him: eyes wide, mouths gaping. Just  _ expectant _ . “Because I’m just not, okay?”

Dee sighs and she looks genuinely disappointed. “Come on, Dennis. It’s the guy’s first Pride parade. We’re just trying to show him a little support.”

“What?” Frank demands. “Support? This is a marketing scheme. I don’t  _ get _ the whole gay thing. So I’m not supporting it. We’re making money here. That’s what this is about.”

Both Dee and Dennis roll their eyes, mirroring one another. “Gee, Frank,” Dee mutters. “How the hell did you pop out two kids with at least a few morals?”

“Morals? This isn’t about  _ morals _ ,” Frank continues. His voice scrapes against the nerves at bottom of Dennis’ neck. 

“Shut up!” He says, and suddenly realizes that Dee had said the same thing at the same time. He glances at her, and she glances at him. He feels suddenly connected to her in a way he hasn’t in a long time. 

“So you do support him,” Charlie says. “So you’ll talk to him then?”

Dennis sighs heavily. “We’re not exactly…” He trails off, wonders how he can say this that will garner the fewest questions. “ _ Speaking _ .”

“You’re not what?” Charlie asks. 

“We’re not speaking,” Dennis says quickly, like tearing off a band-aid. He looks from Charlie, to Dee, who’s watching him carefully. She looks  _ concerned _ and it makes Dennis’ skin crawl. He has to get out of here. He has to get out of here  _ now _ . 

“Why not?” Charlie demands. 

“I don’t want to talk about this!” Dennis says, driving his fist down against the bar. “I’m not asking him, so can one of you do that?” It isn’t enough, so Dennis offers: “I’ll drive the damn thing.”

Charlie and Dee look to one another, considering that. It seems to satisfy them.

Then Frank butts in: “I’ll talk to him.”

“Okay, great,” Dennis says, finishing off his beer and leaving it on top of the bar. He stands, wiping at his mouth with his forearm. “Then, it’s settled.”

He heads straight for the door and hears Charlie mutter: “What’s with him?”

 

—

 

Dennis ends up flaking on the whole Pride float thing anyway. He claims the front cabin of the float makes him feel claustrophobic, and it isn’t a  _ total _ lie. He’s a bundle of nerves the whole day. The thought of driving through that parade, everyone so happy and  _ open _ , about who they are and who they love. As if that’s the easiest thing in the fucking world. 

The thought of all these happy, open people  _ looking at Mac _ .  _ Wanting _ Mac. 

What could Dennis ever do to make him stay if Mac were to be opened up to that sort of world of endless possibility?

It makes him sick and cold, and he can’t seem to get his breath out from his lungs and through his teeth. He spends the day sweating and shaking, and drinking himself stupid alone in his apartment. 

More than once, he has to hide his phone on himself to keep from sending an errant text to Mac. That would just be a whole other can of worms. 

He passes out before seven o’clock. He sleeps for what feels like one, black, dark minute, but when he opens his eyes and glances at his alarm clock, it reads: 11:56 P.M. And he’s no longer alone here. He can hear Mac out in the kitchen, moving slowly and quietly. He isn’t stumbling. Even though Dennis can’t see him, Dennis knows he isn’t drunk. And that’s… Not what Dennis had been expecting. He hadn’t been expecting Mac home tonight at all, quite frankly. 

Something’s different, though. Something’s  _ wrong _ . Dennis can feel it. 

So he swings his feet over the side of the bed and sits up, pauses there until the headrush goes away. Rubbing at his temples, he forces himself to stand. He slowly approaches his door. His shifting weight makes the wood floors creak, and outside, Mac stops whatever he’s doing. 

Dennis feels his heart jump into his throat. He freezes, waits for what Mac might do. If he doesn’t want to see him, Mac would disappear into his own room. But he doesn’t. He’s still, but he isn’t trying to get away. 

So, Dennis pulls open his door. He stands in the doorframe, looking out over dark living room, into Mac in the kitchen. Mac’s standing next to the table, allowing one of the chairs to bear most of his weight. His chin is tucked down towards his chest. His shirt, cut off at the sleeves, of course, is slightly wet. So is his hair. 

“Mac?” He asks across the empty space between them. 

Mac takes a deep breath and doesn’t answer. So, slowly, cautiously, Dennis steps barefoot out into the living room. His heart beating wildly as the distance between them gets smaller and smaller. 

“Mac?” Dennis tries again, once he’s in the kitchen. He’s close enough now to see that Mac has been crying. He thinks his first instinct should be to run as far away from this as he possibly can, but it isn’t. It’s to sit down, and coax Mac to sit down next to him. 

Dennis sits. Mac doesn’t. 

“How was the parade?” He asks carefully. 

“I didn’t go,” Mac says. 

“Oh,” Dennis says, dumbly afraid that he’s just exposed himself as a coward for not being able to face it himself. But he doesn’t have time to think about how  _ he’s _ feeling because there’s sadness and disappointment and anger and bitterness filling the room around him. All coming from Mac. Dennis knows he shouldn’t, but he reaches out and touches Mac’s wrist gently. Mac looks down at their hands, then chews on the inside of his cheek. “Mac, what happened?” Dennis asks. 

Mac shakes his head. He pulls his hand away from Dennis, and Dennis immediately misses the touch, but it doesn’t last long, because Mac is finally sitting down next to him. “I went to the prison,” he says, as if it’s a confession. Dennis keeps his mouth shut. It’s better when he doesn’t talk after Mac visits his father. He never seems to be able to find the right words. He’s never wanted Frank to love him the way Mac wishes Luther would. He doesn’t know how that must feel. “I came out to my Dad,” he adds. 

Dennis hears the sharp intake of breath he takes before he realizes he’s done it. He leans back in his seat, suddenly re-floored by the storm of emotion finishing its eruption around the both of them. “What did he say?” Dennis asks, when Mac doesn’t elaborate. 

Mac laughs, a short bitter thing and then shakes his head. “ _ Nothing _ ,” he says. He looks up at Dennis. Still smiling, but it’s nowhere near his eyes. Dennis keeps his eyes on Mac’s. He can’t look away from this. He can’t ignore this. He can’t run away from this. And Dennis suddenly realizes: his first impulse is  _ to stay _ . “He said literally nothing, Dennis.”

Dennis swallows hard. He looks down at Mac’s hands, laying on top of one another on the table. Before he can chicken out, Dennis reaches out and touches the back of Mac’s palm. Despite everything, Mac’s still warm to the touch. Dennis wishes he was more like him. Dennis sees Mac’s shoulders relax. 

“I’m sorry,” Dennis says, and he thinks he means it more than he’s ever meant anything in his life. Mac looks up at him. Eyes wet with tears. Dennis sees his jaw set, his chin start to quiver, even slightly. It’s taking everything Mac’s got to hold it together. And he needs Dennis’ help, so Dennis says again: “I’m sorry,”  _ ardently _ . 

Then Mac is leaning forward, leaning right into his chest, burrowing his cheek into the crook of Dennis’ neck. He wraps his arms around Dennis’ waist. He feels smaller than he should, so Dennis wraps his arms around him right back. 


	2. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same general warnings apply for this part as in part one! 
> 
> There’s some really unglamourized binge-drinking going on here and Dennis-typical thoughts on food and his own body.
> 
> Co-dependency and toxicity come to a head for Mac and Dennis in this one tbh! But my hopes for s14 are that the Dennis/Mac friendship gets its groove back and I’m kinda putting all that into this story, so it will be fixed! I swear!

**ii.** **destruction**

 

In Dr. Eddy’s office, staring down at his hands, inter-locked in his lap, Dennis still finds he hasn’t been able to catch his breath since the night of Pride with Mac. They hadn’t done anything but talk. Mac had told him about the dance. About how Frank had been there with him through it. How he’d been so  _ supportive _ . How he’d finally said:  _ I get it _ , and Dennis had felt his lungs constrict and then never let go. 

Frank? Frank had been supportive? The same Frank that had laughed at Dennis when he caught him and Deandra playing dress-up in their mother’s closet when they were kids. The same Frank that threw around ‘queer’ and the f-word years before ever being called out on it. The same Frank that Dennis had decided at seventeen could never know that his son had, more than once, thought about what it would be like to be with a man.  _ That _ Frank? It was bullshit. It was an angle. It had to be. Somehow, it was an angle. 

Dennis hadn’t said as much to Mac that night. He couldn’t. He didn’t know how. Not when Mac had still been so fragile. There would inevitably come the time where Dennis would have to protect him from whatever Frank was trying to pull on him, and Dennis would gladly do it. But that night. After Pride. After the prison. Dennis had just kept quiet. He’d kept quiet and he’d been  _ nice _ . Making Mac drink after drink until they both couldn’t drink anymore, and then they’d gone their separate ways. Each to their own rooms. 

“Why are you being so good about this?” Mac had asked, after they’d both stood and took a few steps towards their bedrooms. 

It stopped Dennis dead. “What?” He’d asked, turning back around. 

“You’re just…” Mac had slurred through his words, his head working a mile a minute to come up with something at least semi-coherent. “You’re being  _ nice _ . You haven’t made a single snide remark, dude. I’ve been waiting for it all night.”

Dennis felt everything behind his rib cage turn to ice. That’s what had been expected of him? And the worst part is, he can’t even find it within himself to be indignant, because Hell, it is  _ weird _ that he hasn’t made a snide remark. Hasn’t slid in one single ‘I told you so’ about Luther MacDonald’s painfully blatant apathy towards his son. 

“I don’t know,” he says slowly. 

Mac chuckles to himself, shaking his head. “That therapist you’ve got has gotten into your head, man.” Mac’s still smiling. Dennis isn’t. “Maybe I should try that out.”

Without expecting an answer, Mac continues towards his room. “Yeah, maybe,” Dennis says after him, just as Mac pulls his door shut. 

“You think that’s what this is?” That’s Dr. Eddy’s voice, suddenly breaking through, pulling him back into her office. Back into this session that’s been exclusively about Mac. A fact that makes Dennis red with embarrassment. “You think I’m getting into your head?”

“No,” Dennis answers. 

“Good,” she says back. “Because I’m just guiding you, Dennis.” Dennis looks away from her, out the window, out over the empty parking lot. Grey with an oncoming winter. “I think you handled this situation pretty well. And that’s because you’ve worked at all the groundwork I’ve tried to hand to you. That’s a good thing.”

“Then shouldn’t it feel that way?” Dennis says. His voice is more bitter than he’d intended. 

“Doesn’t it?” She asks. 

“No,” Dennis returns emphatically. 

“Why not?”

“It just  _ doesn’t _ , okay?” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You say that a lot,” Dr. Eddy points out. 

“Yeah, well,” Dennis immediately pokes back. “What can I say? I’m a touchy guy.”

Dr. Eddy closes her notebook, then she leans forward in her seat. She leaves the room hanging quiet until Dennis finally looks at her. “Do you still have that journal I gave you?”

Dennis shakes his head, feels his cheeks go hot with embarrassment. “Yes,” he musters. 

“You’re still using it?” She continues. 

“Sometimes,” he says. 

“Can I give you another exercise?”

Dennis rolls his eyes. “You’re the one in charge here, Doc. I don’t think you have to ask.”

“Yes, I do,” she answers simply. She ignores his scoff. “I want you to address the next few entries to some important people in your life.” Dennis feels his muscles tense. He looks down at the floor in front of him. Who’s important? That list will be shamefully short. “Write them as if they’re letters you’ll never send.”

“This is stupid,” Dennis hears himself say. 

“I think you hold onto a lot of things, Dennis,” she continues to ignore him. “I think it might be cathartic to let some of those things out in a space you know is private and just your own.”

“I don’t even know who I’d write to,” Dennis protests. 

“You don’t have to know right now,” she allows. She smiles reassuringly when Dennis looks up at her, and he feels a spark of warmth somewhere deep inside of him. He tries to ignore it, but Dr. Eddy keeps smiling at him. So instead of acknowledging it, he says: “This is still stupid.”

Dr. Eddy shrugs, not put-off by his disinterest at all. 

 

—

 

“I love therapy, dude,” Mac says from the kitchen. He’s putting away their clean dishes. The sound of porcelain crashing into porcelain makes Dennis shudder in his spot on the couch. It’s grinding on every bad nerve he’s got in his body. “It feels so good to just talk to somebody, you know?”

“Totally,” Dennis mumbles, without looking away from the television. 

He thinks of his journal, untouched since his last session. He feels something rise in his throat, thinks, he had a pretty big dinner, maybe he should just roll with this feeling. 

“I mean, I can literally say just whatever the hell I want,” Mac continues from the kitchen, blissfully unaware of the ticking time-bomb one room over. Porcelain against porcelain, counting down the seconds until everything explodes. Dennis’ foot begins to bounce against the hardwood floor, fast, and he’s unwilling to stop it. “And nobody’s there to stop me, or make fun of me or whatever. It’s  _ great _ . Good call on this, by the way. I never would have gone if you hadn’t told me to.”

“I never told you to,” Dennis answers mechanically from the couch. 

“What?” Mac asks, pausing his chore. Dennis feels a small sense of relief as the apartment falls quiet enough that he can hear his own voice repeating itself. 

“I said, ‘I never told you to go’.”

Mac frowns in confusion. “You totally did, dude,” he says, looking up, drawing back the memories of some distant conversation. Dennis feels overstimulated with the amount of noise from the kitchen again. It’s as grating as the plates had been, and he realizes it’s  _ just Mac’s voice _ . It’s… Pulling him apart at every seam and Dennis doesn’t even know why. “Yeah, you said: your therapist was getting into your head. And that maybe I should try it.”

Dennis swallows hard. Still feels that same venomous bile rising up through his throat. Yup, he’s totally gonna run with it. “You said that,” he says through gritted teeth. 

“Whatever.”

Porcelain against porcelain starts up again. Dennis’ entire body is suddenly covered in goosebumps. He feels like he needs to be locked away in some black box, deprived of all of his senses, but also feels the need to drive his hand through a wall at the same time. And he knows he can’t have either of those things. So he just needs Mac to  _ stop _ . 

“Do you ever talk about me?” He asks. And that does it. Mac pauses again. Long enough that Dennis has to look over his shoulder at him. Mac’s also turned towards him. A plate in his hands looks dangerously close to being dropped and shattering on the tile floor. And that’s a sound Dennis wouldn’t mind hearing. Something loud and destructive. 

Mac chews on his lip, holds Dennis’ eye just long enough for Dennis to know the truth. Then stammers: “That’s… That’s confidential.” He turns towards the counter. Puts the plate on top of it. The chore’s immediately forgotten and Dennis feels something close to victory pool out from his heart and out towards his fingertips. The room hangs quiet for a few moments longer. Dennis just lets it. He’s learned that from Dr. Eddy. Then Mac tacks on, small and quiet: “Do you ever talk about me?”

That pooling victory turns to stone in his stomach. Makes him want to sink through the couch cushions until he disappears completely. He turns back towards the television, away from Mac’s prying stare. “Not really,” he answers, dishonestly, but absolutely convincing. 

Mac leaves the plate where it is. Slowly, trying to feign apathy, he makes his way towards his bedroom. 

The door clicks shut behind him, and Dennis can no longer ignore the fact that he needs to be sick. He darts to his bathroom, locks the door, and stays there until the feeling subsides. Which only happens when he tires himself out enough to pass out sitting up against the bathtub. 

 

—

 

The first letter Dennis writes is addressed to Brian Jr. 

For a full day, it only contains one sentence:  _ You scare the shit out of me. _ And Dennis knows that isn’t enough. He knows Dr. Eddy won’t read these, but still knows she’s expecting  _ more _ . And this, for whatever goddamn reason, feels like something Dennis wants to put the work into. 

Mac comes out of his bedroom to Dennis still stuck on that first line. The journal in his lap on the couch. 

Dennis looks up at him. Mac keeps his eyes blatantly down. He steps into boots wordlessly. Dennis already feels alone so he doesn’t want to stop him. He just talks to hear his own voice. He imagines he does that more than he realizes. 

“You going out?” He asks. 

“Yep,” Mac answers without sentiment. Dennis can’t read him. Doesn’t know if these are plans with the gang that Dennis has been left out of, or if it’s date with someone down at  _ The Rainbow _ . 

“Cool,” Dennis says, going for casual, but coming across more than a little desperate. 

Mac must hear it in his voice, because he sighs, and finally looks up at him. He frowns when he sees the notebook in his lap. 

“What are you writing?” He asks. 

Without even thinking, Dennis closes the notebook. Closes everything down on Mac. Suddenly wishes he could talk the way Mac can talk. But still says anyway: “Nothing.”

Mac nods pointedly, then turns to go without another word.

The wind howls through their old, shitty windows, rattling them. 

Slowly, Dennis opens up his notebook. Stares down at what’s already written there. 

 

_ Brian Jr., _

_ You scare the shit out of me.  _

 

He takes a deep breath. Picks up his pencil and adds another thought:  _ You make me want to be better than I know I’m capable of being. _

His cell starts to vibrate on the coffee table in front of him. It’s Mandy. As if on fucking cue. Dennis feels something tear through him. He’ll call it a sigh, but it hurts his chest in a way that it had hurt when Dee had torn the head off of his stuffed elephant, Mr. Tibbs. He doesn’t want to answer it. Wants to bury his phone under the cushions until he can’t remember it even exists. But  _ her voice _ . He wants to see if it can smooth over some of his edges. 

“Mandy, hey,” he says into the receiver. His voice croaks on his words. 

“Hi, Dennis!” She says cheerfully. It sounds like she’s been drinking. “I’m just over at Tom and Stacy’s place,” she says. He hears other voices, distant, in the background. “We were just talking about you,” she tacks on. 

“What are you saying?” He asks, suddenly panicking about whether or not he’d ever given Tom and Stacy a good reason to talk about him. He’d met them a handful of times over the six months he was there. Nice people, Dennis supposes. Boring as shit. But nice. 

“Nothing bad,” she assures him. “Anyway, we just wanted to say hi.”

“We?” Dennis asks. 

“Well, mostly me,” she clarifies. Dennis feels himself smile before he realizes he wants to. His eyes drift downward, to the journal in his lap. 

“How are you?” He asks. “How’s Brian Jr.?”

“We’re good!” She answers, excited that he’d even ask. “He’s just at home with a sitter right now.” She pauses, then lowers her voice to whisper. “I’ve had a few drinks.”

“Yeah,” Dennis says though his smile. “I can hear that.”

“You can  _ hear _ it?” She all-but squeals. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he says. 

“Anyway, I should go. Get back to dinner,” she continues. “You sound good, are you good?”

A multitude of answers jump to the forefront of his mind. Lie: just say yes, so she doesn’t pry. Then, tell the truth: no, everything’s falling apart. Then, lie again: say yes. Don’t ruin her evening. 

“Yeah,” Dennis settles on. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” She says. Dennis has to wonder how convinced she is by his answer. “So we can have a better conversation.”

“I’d like that,” Dennis says, careful not to reveal any tremor in his voice. 

They exchange more pleasantries. Stacy and Tom shout something into the phone that Dennis doesn’t totally catch, then she hangs up. 

Dennis decides the next letter he writes will be for her. 

 

—

 

Mandy is true to her word. She calls again the next day. Just after five, when she’s finished with work. Dennis, of course, works in a bar, so his day is just beginning. 

He holes himself away in the back office, ignoring the way everyone watches him as he goes. Especially Mac. He locks the door and he hears Charlie gasp faintly before they start a discussion about who locks doors and  _ why _ , but Dennis doesn’t care. 

“So you do remember telling me you’d call,” he says by way of a greeting. 

Mandy immediately groans. “I’m sorry,” she whines. “I haven’t drunk-dialled anyone since I was twenty years old.”

“It’s okay,” Dennis says again, still means it. 

“I just… We were talking about you, and I get worried about you sometimes,” she starts and Dennis’ breath catches in his throat. “How you’re doing in Philadelphia. How things are with your friends.” She means to keep that second part general, but something about it sounds pointed. 

“I told you last night,” Dennis says, keeping his voice cool. It has a little more edge than he’d like, but that can’t really be helped. “Things are good.”

“Yeah?” She says. 

Dennis sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Is this about the therapist, Mandy?” He hears her say ‘no’, but doesn’t listen. “Because I’m seeing her. I’m seeing her, alright? God damn, Mandy. Why can’t you just ask what you want to ask? Why do you always send me on these wild goose chases? Reading between lines. Trying to figure out what you actually want to talk to me about.”

“Dennis,” she says emphatically. 

“What?”

She sighs again, tired and annoyed. “You’re right.”

“God damn right I am,” he mutters. 

“But so what?” She counters. “I’m checking in. It’s not like that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s a bad thing when you treat me like I’m some kind of idiot,” he says before he can stop himself. “I mean, how  _ stupid _ do you think I am? That I wouldn’t be able to see right through your belligerent, holier-than-thou bullshit?”

“Can you stop swearing at me?”

“You can’t manipulate your way into a conversation you think I don’t want to have,” he continues. “A) It’s not going to work, I’ll catch it a mile away, and B) it’s shady as shit, Mandy, and frankly, something I never expected from you.” He pauses, tries to get his breaths down to something a little more normal. He waits for Mandy to fight back. But she just calmly waits. 

“Oh, are you finished?” She finally says. 

He suddenly feels embarrassed. Embarrassed of how quickly he’d allowed himself to get back to this spot: angry and defensive against someone who’d only been trying to help. It runs hot through him. His hands itch with it. 

“Yes,” he answers bitterly. “I’m finished.”

“Okay, good,” she says. “Can I talk now?”

“Yes,” he repeats, rolling his eyes. “You can talk now.”

“Great. Things got a little bumpy when you first started seeing Dr. Andrews,” she says. Dennis sighs, bites down on the desire to change the subject entirely. “So, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t as…” She pauses, trying to find the right word. Back in North Dakota, she’d used a few pretty choice ones:  _ unstable, unhinged _ . Dennis holds his breath, wonders what she might choose this time. “As affected by it,” she decides on. It’s not much better than  _ unstable _ , but he appreciates the effort, even if it does make his eyes roll back into his head. 

“Affected?” He asks through a sigh. “Mandy, I’m affected as shit, I think that’s sort of point.”

“ _ The point _ ,” she says, cutting him off. “Is to find a way to move past all this stuff. To live with it.”

“Then why the hell did I come back to Philadelphia?” He asks. 

“Dennis,” she says softly, as if the answer to that is obvious, but he just feels himself grasping at straws. 

“What?”

She sighs. She chooses her next words very carefully. Had there ever been a time where people didn’t have to be careful around him? “When you came to North Dakota, you left everything behind in Philly,” she starts. 

“Yeah?” Dennis demands. 

“That’s just leaving,” she says. “That isn’t moving past anything.”

“I don’t know what it is you think I have to ‘move past’, Mandy,” he continues. “But I’m beginning to think I could do that just about anywhere, but for some  _ god-awful reason _ , I chose to do it in the hellscape that is Pennsylvania on the verge of a full-blown winter.”

“You have people you love there with you,” she supplies. 

“I have  _ people _ in North Dakota too,” he adds. 

“It’s not the same.”

“No? I think the winters are pretty damn similar.”

“I’m not talking about the weather, Dennis,” she says, voice tired and exasperated. Her words roll over in Dennis’ head:  _ you have people you love _ . What the hell does she know about who he does and doesn’t love? 

“You think I don’t love you? Or, or love Brian Jr.?” He asks, ready to pounce on any hurt feelings she might have if she gives him the chance. Anything to end this conversation here. 

“I think it’s  _ different _ ,” she offers. 

“How?”

“Because you aren’t  _ in love _ with me! And I’m not in love with you either,” she starts. 

“Jesus Christ,” Dennis mutters. 

The moment hangs. All he can hear is his own breath and Mandy’s coming through the line. 

“Dennis,” she says. Her voice is so soft with apology that it makes Dennis’ heart start to race in his chest. Whatever she has to say next terrifies him. He can’t hear it. He shuts his eyes, as if that might help, then says: “Don’t…” 

“Dennis,” she repeats. 

“Don’t,” he manages again. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t god damn do it.”

“You have to tell him,” she says gently. 

All the air in his lungs comes rushing out at once. He puts his hand down on the desk to steady himself. He feels like the ground might open up, might swallow him, and he might just let it. Everything feels suddenly disused and cob-webbed. Brittle to the point of breaking. Like he’s been suddenly made out of glass. Like this isn’t actually his body. Like this isn’t actually a conversation he’s a part of. Like this isn’t the deep, dark secret he’s been burying and burying and burying since he was seventeen years old. 

“Dennis?” Mandy asks. Her voice shakes. 

“I don’t have to tell him shit,” he says. He laces his voice with every bitter, angry emotion he’s ever felt in his pathetic life. Directs it somewhere that isn’t the middle of his chest. 

“You asked me why you ever chose to come back to Philly, this is why, Dennis,” she continues. 

“Screw you,” he says. 

“I’m sorry.” 

And finally.  _ Finally _ , she stops talking. And Dennis doesn’t know what to say. Knows he should hang up, but all he’s got to hold onto is the steadiness of Mandy’s breath. In and out, in and out. Normal and familiar, so Dennis tries to match it. He doesn’t know how long they both stay there. Quiet and hurting. 

“Are you gonna be okay?” She finally asks, her voice soft, and Dennis finally feels the distance between Philadelphia and North Dakota. 

“Yeah,” he answers. 

“Are you still taking your medication?”

Dennis slowly lowers himself into Frank’s chair. He digs into his pocket for his prescription. He’d honestly forgotten about it this morning. Where would he be without her? He pops off the top and takes his dose, swallows them down dry. 

“Yeah,” he says, setting the bottle down on the desk next to the keyboard. 

“Okay,” she says. “Can you call me tomorrow? Please?”

“Sure,” he says. “Okay. Whatever.”

“Brian Jr. misses you,” she says, and Dennis sighs.  _ You make me want to be better than I know I’m capable of being _ . He scrapes a shaky hand down his face and nods. He clenches his jaw tight, picturing that little twerp’s face, he wants to smile, but feels too sad. 

“Tell him I miss him too,” he tells her. 

“He knows,” she says. But Dennis doesn’t want him to. Doesn’t want him to know how deeply sad, fucked-up, and incapable of change he is. 

“Okay,” is all he says. 

He thinks Mandy tells him that she loves him. He can’t remember. All he knows is he’s alone here. Guarded, a thick wooden door between him and the only other person he might fear more than Brian Jr. 

 

—

 

Dennis had woken up with the distinct feeling that there was something he was forgetting. He’s got no clue what it is, but it’s hanging over him every second, seeping in through his pores and resting there, making his bones feel heavier than they are. 

“She does just care about you, Dennis,” Dr. Eddy says. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears a voice screaming something about victory. He’d held out longer than she could. He’d made her talk first. Instead of acknowledging that voice, he simply nods. “Why do you think you were so frustrated with your conversation with Mandy?”

Dennis bounces his foot against the thick carpet. He doesn’t want to think about this. Wouldn’t want to, even if he could want to, because all his head is screaming is:  _ you’re forgetting something, you’re forgetting something, you’re forgetting something.  _

“I don’t know,” he says, just to drown out his own brain. “She wants to help, but I don’t think she knows how.”

“That might be true,” she allows. 

“She thinks I need to like…” He shrugs, starts to bounce both feet now, faster. “I don’t even know.” He crosses his arms over his chest, brings one hand up to his mouth, chews at the skin on the side of his thumb. He shrugs again, helplessly. “She thinks I have unfinished business or something. It’s… Whatever, it’s stupid.”

“Unfinished business?”

Dennis chews at his thumb, hard enough to hurt. He drops both hands into his lap, clasps them together and twists. “She thinks I’m in love with Mac.”

Dr. Eddy raises her eyebrows passively. She tilts her head slightly, then just simply asks: “Are you?”

And for a moment, everything goes still and quiet. All the noise in Dennis’ head suddenly cuts out. The nothingness rings out, over and over. He wonders, has anyone ever asked him that before? Has anyone ever actually just asked? He feels everything inside of him go so cold that it hurts. He wants to be sick. He wants to run. He wants to…  _ just say it _ . He wants to say it out loud so that it doesn’t sit heavy on his chest anymore. He wants like hell for an admission this big to  _ make a difference _ . He wants to ignore the instinct telling him over and over that it won’t. It won’t change anything. He will still hurt. 

He swallows hard, thinks,  _ fuck it _ , and says: “Yes.” Dr. Eddy just nods, and all that noise starts back up in his head. All starting with one sickening thought: “Did you know that already?” Did everyone but him already know. 

“It isn’t my job to make assumptions,” she says, as if that’s a good answer. “It’s my job to give you the space and safety to say these things out loud.”

Everything fogs. He can’t think straight. He can barely breathe. “That’s a yes,” he musters. 

“Why does it matter to you that I might have known?” She prods. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I just thought I was doing a fine job hiding it.” He shakes his head. “Do you think Mac knows?”

“Have you told him?” She asks. 

“God, no,” Dennis answers quickly. “No way.”

“Then, no,” she says, shrugging. “I don’t think he knows.”

Dennis laughs meekly. She always makes things seem so simple. That’s all she thinks it might take? All he’d have to do is tell Mac how he feels? That sounds fake. 

“Have you written any of those letters I asked you to think about?” She asks gently. 

“Yes.”

“Have you written one for Mac?”

Dennis looks up at her. Asks, though he already knows the answer: “You think I should?”

 

—

 

The feeling that he’s forgotten something follows him home. 

Into his apartment, into his bedroom, where he sits in a pile in the middle of his mattress, his journal, opened but untouched, in his lap. 

The page is blank, staring up at him feebly. It doesn’t even have Mac’s name at the top yet, even though Dennis knows that’s what he’ll put there. 

The thing is, he has no idea where to start. He and Mac have been friends so long, sometimes Dennis could forget where he finished and Mac began. Ever since North Dakota, they’ve been orbiting one another, far away from each other until they came colliding together, crashing in a way that Dennis wishes was good and powerful, but was usually hopelessly destructive. 

He thinks about the day they’d kissed in high school. Drunk and high, under the bleachers at school. How they’d never talked about it, beyond Mac loudly explaining that he’d blacked out a few hours that afternoon. He thinks about the way Mac let them kiss and touch, as long as Dennis called him Vic. And about how, that same night, Mac had called him Hugh, over and over, but accidentally let out one, breathless and helpless  _ Dennis _ when Dennis found that spot on his neck where he loved to be kissed and bit. Mostly, he thinks about the long nights he’d spent alone in North Dakota. Dark and exhausted by just how isolated he’d let himself become. 

He knows that these are  _ big _ thoughts and feelings. But each one is punctuated by that itching feeling:  _ you’re forgetting something, you’re forgetting something, you’re forgetting something _ . 

Then, there’s someone at the door. Knocking wildly. 

Cautious, not expecting company, Dennis goes to the door, pulls it open, and is berated with Dee’s voice: “Sup, boner?”

He sighs, feeling anxious and interrupted. “What do you want?”

“It’s just so good to see you too,” she says, ignoring him. 

“Okay, hello,  _ hi _ ,” he says, rubbing at his temples. “Happy?” Dee shrugs, but smiles. “So, what is this? Why are you here?”

She starts to dig through her purse, then reveals his prescription bottle. She holds it out to him, her eyebrows raised in question. He snatches it from her and pockets it, wishes he could hide it forever. 

“You’re forgetting something, asshole,” is all she says. 

“Where did you find this?” He demands. 

She steps by him and into the apartment. Dennis just lets her. He shuts the door and follows her into the kitchen. She goes straight for the fridge. “You left them in the back office, you dumb idiot. Yesterday.”

She pulls out two bottles of beer, tosses one wordlessly to Dennis. He catches it, twists the top of and downs half of it. “Did anybody else see it?”

Still drinking, Dee shrugs. “Don’t think so.”

She walks past him and sits down on the couch. He follows her. “Did you hear what I said? I said ‘yesterday’. Shouldn’t you be taking them?”

“It’s fine,” he snaps back, sitting down next to her. She takes his mood in stride. Isn’t put off by it, just keeps sipping at her beer, enjoying it totally. 

“Mood stabilizers, huh?” She finally asks. 

“Shut up, Dee,” he mutters. 

“I don’t think they’re working.”

“Hilarious.”

They both take a drink. Mirroring one another like the twins that they are. They both finish. Set the empty bottles down on the coffee table. In sync, have been since birth, in their own fucked up way. 

Sometimes, Dennis misses the way they were when they were kids. Young, young kids. Long before high school. Back when it had felt like it was them against the whole world and Dennis had been happy with that. With Dee. His twin sister, who knew him inside and out without him even having to open his mouth. High school fucked them up.  _ Dennis _ fucked them up. 

“Do you really think they’re not working?” He finally asks. 

Dee sighs, and Dennis thinks it sounds sad. “I don’t know, Dennis. I failed psych at Penn, remember?”

“Right,” Dennis says with a laugh. “Loser.”

“ _ Dick _ .” She shakes her head, then she gets up, gathers their empties and takes them to the kitchen. Dennis immediately misses the feeling of having her next to him. She comes back. She always does. And she hands him another beer. 

“I think you’ve been wildly unstable your whole life,” she says. “Like, actually batshit insane.”

“Okay,” Dennis mumbles, pushing her towards her point. 

“But maybe… Lately…” Dennis raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Maybe you’ve been a little more tolerable.” Dennis smiles. “Still crazy. Don’t think you’re not crazy. But you’re better.”

“Thanks, Dee,” he says. “You’ve been relatively tolerable yourself.”

“Didn’t ask.”

Dennis shrugs. Twists open his second bottle and drinks it slowly. Dee does too, only a beat behind him. 

“You talking to someone too?” Dee asks. “I could put in a good word for you at my therapist’s office.”

“You still seeing that blond bitch?” Dennis asks, turning towards her. 

“Oh, God, no,” Dee says back. “I’m not allowed within a hundred feet of that place. No, I found another one.”

“And they accepted you?”

“Screw you, yes,” Dee barks back. “God damn it, I’m trying to help you! Why do you always have to do this?”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Dennis mumbles, holding his hands up in surrender. “I appreciate it, okay? I just… Don’t need it.”

“You might like it,” she says. 

“I’m already seeing someone,” he says. 

And Dee’s stunned silent. Maybe for the first time in her bird-brained life. She gapes at him, eyes wide. 

“You are?” She finally manages. “On your own free will?”

Dennis rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“I’m just… Blown away,” she says. Dennis rolls his eyes again. “That you would do that. Decide to do something that could maybe be good for you. You’re just always so destructive.”

“I’m not always destructive,” Dennis says. 

“You really are.” Dennis looks up at her. She knows him inside and out, same way he knows her. He feels suddenly seen, always does by her when he allows himself to. And he hasn’t done that in a long time. He hasn’t allowed himself to be open and honest with her in a long time, even longer if you don’t count their near-death experience on that goddamn Christian cruise. 

“Okay, maybe,” he mutters. He picks and peels at the label of his beer. He hates it, but he wants to  _ talk _ to her. Wants to keep her here, to himself, for as long as he can. “I don’t think I like it,” he says. 

“Therapy?” He nods. “Nobody likes therapy.”

“I guess,” he allows. 

“What’s yours got you doing?” She asks. 

Scoffing, Dennis shakes his head. “Writing letters.”

“Writing letters?” Dee balks. “That’s so lame.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Mine had me do that once,” she says, nodding and smiling. 

“Yeah?”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Dee says through a laugh. “She regretted it almost immediately. I made her life a living hell until she let me stop.”

“Did you write one for me?” Dennis asks. 

“Of course I wrote one for you,” she says. 

“Well, I never got it!”

“Well, yeah, that’s because I burned it.”

“You  _ burned _ it?”

“Yeah,” Dee answers. “It just got me so heated, you know? I was so angry at you, it was either burn the letter or burn you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dennis mutters, but can’t help the laugh that bubbles up inside of him. Dee laughs too. It feels tender, somehow. 

“You writing one for me?” She asks. 

“Eventually,” Dennis allows. 

“Frank?”

“Fuck that,” Dennis seethes. 

Dee pauses and Dennis feels his stomach fall to the floor. “What about Mac?” The air’s suddenly knocked out of him. He chews on the inside of his cheek and keeps his eyes pointedly away from his sister. She’s seen too much. 

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah, I’m writing one for Mac.”

“What are you gonna say?” Her voice is gentler than Dennis thinks he’s ever heard it. 

Thinking of the blank page in his journal, Dennis says: “I have no clue.”

Dee considers that, figures that has to be the best answer Dennis could have given. Then, she nods and drinks her beer. 

“You gonna give it to him?” She asks. And that thought horrifies him. But still, something cracks and  _ blossoms _ , and he can’t ignore it. “When you’re finished?” She tacks on. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says, voice thick and honest. “Maybe.” 

 

—

 

Dennis never really knows where to start with his letter to Mac, so he just writes everything. Every thought and feeling he’s ever had. He writes it all down like it’s a relic. It takes up more pages than Dennis cares to admit.

He never writes ‘ _ I love you _ ’, but it’s there. In every word, it’s there. 

And when he’s finished, he wants to tear it all apart. Wants to the burn the journal whole. Incinerate it beyond existence. He throws it in a drawer of his nightstand, suddenly wishing it had a lock and key that he could destroy so no one could ever see what was inside, not even himself. 

He thinks of Dee. And that feeling she’d made him have. The way his heart had cracked and rebuilt itself at the thought of not just opening himself up like this, but showing it all to Mac. It’s still horrifying. It’s still the scariest thing Dennis thinks he could ever do, but he  _ wants to _ , even though every instinct is telling him not to. 

His cell buzzes in his pocket. He checks it. It’s a text from Mac. Dennis feels his heart stop. 

 

**Mac**

You at home?

**Dennis**

Yeah

**Mac**

I’m on my way. 

**Dennis**

Ok

 

Three dots, three dots, three dots. Dennis holds his breath. Watching them. 

 

**Mac**

We need to talk. 

 

For a moment, it feels as though the world suddenly stops on its axis. He feels wildly thrown off balance. And then, like nothing, everything starts up again. Fits right back into place.  _ We need to talk _ . Yeah… They do need to talk. It’s just like Mandy had told him:  _ you have to tell him. _

Dennis looks back to the closed drawer of his nightstand. He’s never believed in some higher power. Some omni-powerful force controlling everything around him. But he suddenly feels its pull. Suddenly feels it working its magic around him. He pulls open the drawer, tears out the pages with all his rambling words to Mac. And decides then and there: Mac has to see these. 

He has to see these because then he’ll know none of this is one-sided. It never had been. And these pages. Mac will know these pages are real because they’re more powerful than anything Dennis could ever say. They’re pain-stakingly detailed and  _ true _ , and openly vulnerable. Dennis could be accused of manipulating his own emotions and words and he would be hard-pressed to defend himself, but these pages would be too much for Mac to deny. 

He finds himself in front of the mirror in his bathroom. He puts on some foundation, plays with his hair until he’s too nervous to keep from touching it anymore. His nerves make him feel sick. He glances down at the toilet. But before he can decide that there’s time, there isn’t any. Out in the living room, the front door is opening and closing, and it’s  _ Mac _ . Dennis knows it’s Mac. He fills space in a room in a way Dennis could never mistake. 

He takes one last look at himself in the mirror and goes before he loses his cool. 

He pats at the notebook pages in his pocket. Takes a deep breath and makes a promise to himself:  _ you’re going to do this _ . 

He steps out in the living room and Mac is already sitting at the kitchen table. He’s playing with his hands awkwardly, but he looks up at Dennis and offers him a small smile. 

“Hey,” he says softly. 

“Hey,” Dennis says back. 

Mac glances at the seat next to him and Dennis knows he’s supposed to sit. So he does. He watches Mac continue to fidget. He’s nervous. It gives Dennis some new-found courage. If Mac won’t start this, he can. 

“Listen, Mac,” he starts. “I have something I want to say too.”

“Can you just…” Mac cuts him off. He closes his eyes and takes a shuddering breath. “Can you just let me go first?”

Dennis leans away from him. Feeling sick and nervous in a new way. He pulls his letter out of his pocket and clings to it in his lap. “Yeah,” he manages. “Of course, dude. Do what you gotta do.”

Mac takes another deep breath. He opens his mouth to speak and then wires it shut again. He runs his hand through his hair and then shakes his head. It’s making Dennis anxious as hell. His hands start to shake. His foot bounces against the leg of his chair. He needs to break this quiet. Whatever this quiet means, it needs to end, so he starts: “It’s okay…”

But then Mac interrupts him: “I’m moving out.”

The world breaks in half. Opens up and swallows him whole. And there’s nothing Dennis can do to stop it. His heart rattles in his chest so fast that it makes him lose his breath. He can’t even bring himself to wire his mouth shut. It just hangs there, still open, as the world around him starts to bleed into nothingness. He can feel every part of him shutting down and dying, and Mac won’t even look at him. 

“You’re what?” He says, and he doesn’t even know how he manages it. 

“I’m gonna move out,” Mac says. He says it with a little more certainty this time and he even looks at Dennis. His eyes are wide; open and vulnerable. Deeply honest in a way that only Mac can seem to be. 

The letter in Dennis’ hands crumples. It feels like it could burn him if he holds onto it any longer. He feels cold with embarrassment. Wills it to disappear, wills himself to forget a time where he’d thought that any of these words would matter. That they would make a difference. 

“Where are you gonna go?” Dennis asks, as if there’s anything that matters more than the fact that  _ Mac is leaving him _ . 

“I’m gonna stay with my Mom,” Mac explains quietly. “Until I can find my own place.”

“Your own place,” Dennis parrots back. 

He imagines he looks pale because Mac leans towards him, looking concerned. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I just think we need some space.” Dennis swallows hard, swallows down what feels like could be a sob. He sets his hands down on the table, hoping that that might steady them, but it only makes it worse. And Mac’s looking down at his trembling fingers and it’s the  _ pity _ that really makes Dennis sick. “We’re not good for each other anymore, man.” He says it as though it’s an apology. 

“We’re not—” Dennis starts, but he cuts himself off when his voice quavers. He covers it up with anger instead. “What does that even mean? Is that some bullshit phrase your therapist said to you?”

“No,” Mac defends. “No, it’s not bullshit, dude!” Dennis scoffs, shaking his head. “And it didn’t come from my shrink,” Mac continues. “Frank said that I could never find my pride because you wouldn’t let me.”

Dennis sees red. When he hears ‘Frank’, he sees red. 

“Frank said that?”

“Yeah, and you know what? He’s  _ right _ .” His voice is sharp, direct. Dennis feels it like a punch to the stomach. 

“Oh, he’s  _ right _ ,” Dennis hears himself say, hurt and venomous. “You think he’s right? So. So it wasn’t  _ Frank _ who called you the f-word on a crowded Philly street? It wasn’t  _ Frank _ who said to your face that he couldn’t be in the same room alone as you in case you got your gay hands all over him?”

“He’s different now, Dennis,” Mac says, shutting his eyes, exasperated. 

“No, he isn’t,” Dennis says. It’s a habit from childhood. Coming back from the dead whenever someone tried to convince him that he should respect his father wholly on the grounds of him  _ being his father _ . It was bullshit then, and it’s bullshit now.  _ Frank _ is bullshit. He’d ruined Dennis’ life in high school, and now he was ruining the one good thing that he’d managed to keep into adulthood. 

“He is,” Mac repeats. “He supports me. He accepts me. He told me: he gets it now. And that’s more than what you’ve ever done!”

“What!?” Dennis squawks, his voice goes raw and high with indignation. 

“You heard me,” Mac says. 

“How?” Dennis demands. “How is that more?”

Mac sighs. He drops his chin down towards his chest. “Really, Den?”

“Yes,” Dennis answers petulantly. 

Mac shakes his head. “You’ve always known how I feel about you, and all you’ve done is use it to get what you want.”

“That’s not true,” Dennis starts, but Mac’s still talking over him. 

“Where exactly do you think you come off as good in this scenario?”

And that gives Dennis pause. Nowhere, if he’s honest. Nowhere. He’s all bad. And maybe Frank was right about him. He was holding everyone back. He was holding  _ Mac _ back from being happy. All these years, Frank had been right. 

“Mac…”

“Just stop,” Mac says. “Whatever you’re gonna say, just don’t. I’m moving out and nothing you can do will change my mind.” He pauses, sighs, as if he’s hoping Dennis just might try. When Dennis doesn’t, he deflates. “I think I’m in love with you,” he admits. Dennis opens his mouth, thinks, this has to be his chance. He has to say it back. But before he can get the words out, Mac tacks on: “And I don’t want to be anymore.”

Mac watches that revelation rush over them both. He watches the veneer that is Dennis Reynolds crack and shatter and then desperately try to rebuild itself with shaky hands. 

“Oh,” is all Dennis says, and he barely says it at all. 

Mac sighs. He looks… regretful? But he’s committed to this, so he doesn’t run with that feeling the way Dennis wishes he would. Instead, he just asks: “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“What?” Dennis breathes out. 

“When I first got here,” Mac explains. He sounds exhausted. “You said you had something you wanted to say to me too.”

Dennis looks down at the folded pages in his lap.  _ Nothing you can do will change my mind _ . He’d opened himself entirely, and where had it left him? Bleeding out, trying to find oxygen. And above all else: completely and utterly alone.

“Nothing,” he croaks. “It doesn’t matter.”

Mac nods. He swallows hard and finally says what he really means: “I think we should not be friends anymore.”

Everything turns to stone and Dennis doesn’t think things will ever change back. 

 

—

 

The next morning, Dennis wakes up to an empty apartment. He’s face-down on the tiled floor of the bathroom. There’s shattered glass all around him and his knuckles ache distantly. Above him, there’s a fist-sized hole in the mirror. 

He sits up, slowly, and he’s met with a blinding hangover. 

He reaches for his phone, turns it over. The battery is almost dead and the screen is cracked. It’s also five in the goddamn afternoon. Dennis groans, unlocks his phone to see that there are a bunch of texts from Dee. They begin just as he suspected: annoyed that he’s late. 

Then, right there, in the middle, she says:  _ Mac just told us he’s moving out. Are you okay? _ There are four more messages she’d sent after that. Each one gets progressively more frantic. She knows him. Knows how he can get when things don’t go the way he wants them to. Then, the final one, from two minutes ago:  _ I’m coming over _ . 

“Shit,” he mumbles. 

He texts back:  _ don’t. im fine _

He pulls himself to his feet. He gathers the bigger pieces of glass and staggers out towards the kitchen. He opens the trash can, means to haphazardly drop all the glass inside, but something catches his eye. The torn pages of his letter to Mac. Riddled to bits. Unreadable and utterly destroyed. He doesn’t remember doing that, but it sounds like something he’d do. It makes him feel inexplicably sad. It feels like such a  _ waste _ . 

His cell buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text from Mac, and Dennis hates that it still makes his lungs constrict and stomach flutter. 

 

**Mac**

I’m coming by tonight to get my things. 

 

Dennis nearly chokes on the bile in his throat. It rises, hot with anger. 

 

**Dennis**

what things?

 

Mac leaves him on read. 

 

—

 

Dennis starts drinking about an hour after he woke up. And he drinks the hard stuff. Whiskey straight out of the bottle without anything to chase it down.

Mac arrives some time after eleven. And Dennis is pissdrunk. He’s draped over the kitchen table, resting his head on his outstretched arm. He’s still clinging to the bottle of whiskey, even though there might only be two or three drinks left inside. 

Behind him, someone tries to step inside the apartment. Dennis laughs to himself, remembering that he’d locked the door. As if that could really  _ stop _ Mac from getting inside. He has keys, of course. But it was the principle. He was  _ moving out _ . He shouldn’t be able to just mosey on in whenever he damn well felt like it. 

Dennis listens as Mac digs into his pockets and shoves his key into the lock. He pushes the door open, steps inside, and stops dead when he sees Dennis, semi-conscious and already angry. 

“Jesus Christ, dude,” he mumbles. 

“What?” Dennis asks, without lifting his head. 

“You look terrible,” Mac says, shutting the door gently. 

“ _ You _ look terrible,” Dennis pokes back clumsily. 

“Okay,” Mac mutters, then he’s out of the living room and into his bedroom. 

Dennis slowly sits up, ignores the way his head swims and he downs what’s left in the whiskey bottle. He ungracefully drops the bottle to the floor. It doesn’t break, but it’s enough to pull Mac back out of his bedroom. He pokes his head out of the door, peers down at the bottle, then up at Dennis. 

“Did you just try to break that?” He asks. 

“No,” Dennis says indignantly. He pushes himself up to his feet, steadying his weight against the back of his chair. He staggers forward, towards the fridge. There’s gotta be more beer in there. He needs a change of pace. He needs to sober up a little bit. He pulls the fridge door open, nearly loses his balance in the process. 

“You really think you need another drink, bro?” Mac asks, as if he can read Dennis’ mind. As if he  _ knows _ Dennis is even scouring the fridge for more alcohol and not, maybe, something to eat. He doesn’t know shit. 

“You really think you need another drink?” Dennis repeats, putting on his most-exaggerated Mac impression. “ _ Please _ ,” Dennis slurs. 

“I thought you were slowing down on the drinking stuff,” Mac continues. 

“What are you talking about?” Dennis asks. He pulls out a beer, figuring, fuck it, Mac’s right, there’s no point in staving off the inevitable. Mac rolls his eyes when he catches the ember bottle in Dennis’ hand. 

“You were talking all that bullshit about not wanting to get belligerent on a Tuesday night?” Mac tries. 

“Is it Tuesday?” Dennis demands. 

“ _ Yes _ !” Mac barks right back. 

“Oh,” Dennis mutters. When had that happened? “Well,  _ excuse me _ for wanting to make every night a good night!”

“Jesus Christ,” Mac mutters, before disappearing back into his room. “It’s impossible to have a conversation when you’re like this, Dennis.”

And something about that, what he’d said or how he’d said it, makes Dennis’ blood boil. He follows Mac back in towards his bedroom, drinking as he goes. He stops in the doorway. Not that Mac had very much, but most of it is already packed neatly into a cardboard box. Dennis chokes on the beer in his mouth. He’d meant to come in hot, defending himself, starting a fight, but staring in on the empty room, Dennis finds he can’t. It’s  _ real _ . This is all real. Mac is leaving and he’s doing it  _ quickly _ and  _ easily _ . Like it’s nothing. He’s just going to carry out everything that’s important to him in a flimsy box and leave everything else behind. Dennis suddenly wishes he wasn’t drunk. He wants to say  _ everything _ . But he wants to say it right. This isn’t how this was supposed to go. 

“Can I help you?” Mac asks. He’d noticed the sudden change in his friend’s demeanour. 

“I…” Dennis shakes his head. Tries to shake himself out of this mood and bring all that anger back. It’s always easier to be angry than anything else. “When… When I’m like  _ what _ , Mac?”

“What?” Mac asks. 

“You said, you can’t talk to me when I’m like this,” Dennis explains. “Well, like what?”

Mac rolls his eyes. “When you’re stupid angry and you have to be right all the time.”

“I don’t have to be right all the time,” Dennis defends. 

“Yes, you do, dude,” Mac retorts, jabbing his finger in Dennis’ direction. “Well, it’s not gonna happen, okay? You’re not gonna be right here,” he says, gesturing between the two of them. “You’re  _ wrong _ , Dennis. You’re wrong, and that’s why I’m leaving.”

“That’s not why you’re leaving,” Dennis says. His voice is uncharacteristically small. 

Mac sighs, hitches his hands on his hips. “What? What does that mean?”

Dennis hates the way his words roll over in his tongue. He hates that he sounds so fucking stupid, because he  _ means _ what he’s about to say. He means it like hell. “You’re leaving because you’re afraid.”

“Afraid?” Mac demands. “I spend my whole days doing ocular pat-downs on Philly’s finest, what could I possibly be afraid of?”

“Of  _ me _ ,” Dennis says. 

Mac looks up at him. Everything about him just looks sad. Sad, and so exhausted. He shakes his head. Dennis doesn’t know if he’s doing that to him, or to himself. Dennis waits, lets the moment hang, hoping that Mac will answer him. Say anything. Say  _ yes _ , he’s afraid of the feelings between them, or  _ no,  _ he isn’t afraid because he finally understand that this isn’t some one-sided thing between them. But Mac doesn’t. He just watches Dennis right back. Lost for words and feelings swirling in his chest that seems to happen to Mac more often than not. 

“Mac…” Dennis tries again. 

“Dennis,” Mac says, cutting him off. “You’re drunk. We shouldn’t talk about this when you’re drunk.”

“I’m always drunk,” Dennis says emphatically. 

Mac sighs, rubs at his forehead. He doesn’t have it in him to tell Dennis that’s not true. A lie of that magnitude would just be too much effort at this point. “I don’t know what you want me to say, man,” Mac finally says. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Dennis says. He steps deeper into the room. He sets his beer down on the floor and fills the space in front of Mac. Mac watches him closely the whole way. Dennis reaches out and touches his hand and there’s that electricity that always passes between them. And Mac  _ feels _ it. Dennis knows he does. Because he shuts his eyes to it. Tries to pretend it isn’t there, but it is, and always has been. 

“What are you doing?” Mac whispers. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Dennis says. 

“I am.”

“You don’t have to.”

Mac drops his forehead to Dennis’. He moves his hand, lets Dennis lace their fingers together. “Yes, I do.”

“Because you’re in love with me,” Dennis offers. Mac sighs heavily. Dennis has to bear a little more of his weight. Which is tough, considering how much he’s still staggering. Frankly, he isn’t quite sure how he’s keeping his voice so smooth and sure with just how much alcohol he has in his system. It’s almost as if he’s doing it out of habit, from all the drunken nights he’d spent ‘Inspiring Hope’ using the D.E.N.N.I.S. system. He feels suddenly sick about what would normally come next: Separate Entirely. He swallows it down. Tries to ignore it. He isn’t going anywhere. Mac’s the one who’s leaving. And Dennis can’t let that happen. He can’t let Mac Separate Entirely. That’s not… That’s not how this was all supposed to end. “That doesn’t mean you have to go,” Dennis says, his voice shakes. He hopes Mac doesn’t notice. “Mac,” Dennis says, then waits for Mac to look up at him. “It doesn’t mean you have to go because… I’m in love with you too.”

Mac tenses. His eyes immediately go down to Dennis’ chest. Dennis feels him try to squirm back, pulling his hand away as he does. Dennis squeezes it, tries to get Mac to stay, but he won’t. He keeps pulling, until there’s a foot between them and Dennis can’t believe just how cold he is. 

“Why would you do that?” Mac asks, breathless and overwhelmed. 

“What?” Dennis asks. He takes a step forward, but Mac matches him, taking a further step backward. 

“Why would you say that, you asshole?” Mac says again, this time louder,  _ angrier _ . 

“Why would I?...” Dennis shakes his head desperately. “Because I mean it.”

“No, you don’t,” Mac gasps. “You’re just drunk and lonely.”

“That’s not…” Dennis starts, but then cuts himself off. Because he  _ is _ those two things. But being those and loving Mac don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, the combination of any of those three things has been the most influential force in his life since the eleventh grade. 

Mac begins to collect the rest of his things, chucking them into the cardboard box. Dennis feels his hands start to itch. His heart starts racing way too fast in his chest. He steps towards Mac, puts his hands on top of Mac’s stopping him. 

“Stop, stop,” Dennis says. He starts taking out the things Mac has been putting into the box, dropping them back down onto the bed. “Just  _ stop _ !”

And Mac does. But he won’t look at Dennis. “What?”

Chest heaving, the room sits quiet for a moment. Dennis counts down from three, trying to keep himself steady. “You don’t believe me?”

Mac takes a deep breath. He looks up at Dennis, can’t bring himself to say it, so he just shakes his head. Dennis feels the earth around him crack in half. Everything suddenly feels like it needs to be smashed. Dennis wants to destroy everything. Tear everything apart and then rebuild from the ground up. 

Before Dennis can even finish processing his answer, Mac is stuffing all of his things back into the cardboard box and he shoulders past Dennis and out into the living room. It takes Dennis a moment too long to realize Mac’s on his way out the door, so it takes a jog for him to catch up. 

“Mac, no,” he says to the back of Mac’s head. “Wait, don’t go,” he says again, this time reaching out and fumbling clumsily at Mac’s wrist. He grips it as tightly as he can and yanks on it. It makes him feel like a kid, but he doesn’t care, because Mac lets him; he lets him tug him back into the apartment. He lets him tug him right up against his body. He lets Dennis kiss him, deeply and desperately. But he only allows himself to soak that up for a moment. A moment that’s way too short for Dennis. Then, he’s pulling away, and he puts his hand to Dennis’ chest, keeping a good distance between them. 

“Mac,” Dennis says, pushing back against his hand. 

“Don’t,” Mac tells him. And he  _ means _ it. He doesn’t want this, and Dennis sees that for the first time. “Just give it up, man.”

It doesn’t feel real. Watching Mac drop his keys down on the kitchen table. Watching him pull open the door and shut it behind him with finality. Feeling that unmistakable Mac presence disappear down the hallway and then all Dennis is left with is that cold feeling that makes him want to crack everything he has open wide. 

And maybe he can start with his own body. 

He goes to the kitchen, grabs a bottle of wine from their secret stash and drinks it. He blacks out before he finishes the bottle, but he’s sure he doesn’t stop there. 

He’ll wake up in the morning broken, and it will feel fantastic. 


	3. part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it, folks! Part three!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s taken the time to read this whole thing! It got super away from me. It was definitely only supposed to be like 10k, but it just sort of kept growing!
> 
> So, this is the part where we earn our explicit rating! It’s near the end and gets super mushy, so if you’re not into mushy MacDennis, this might not be for you!
> 
> There is a part mid-chapter where a nameless character uses the f-slur in a bad way. He does get punched in the face for it, but it’s there. The ensuing fight is described in some detail, but nothing graphic at all! (This happens as Mac and Dennis leave a sports bar. You can skip to the following scene, if it’s something you’re uncomfortable with.)
> 
> Last warning, there is also a scene where Dennis has a panic attack, so if you’re not good with having that feeling described, skip right over it! (It comes in at a block text where Mac asks him via text: ‘What’s the plan?’ If you skip through to the next break [marked with a ‘—‘ between paragraphs, you’ll miss it entirely.)
> 
> Again, thank you so much for reading! All of your comments have been so nice and they definitely kept me working on this thing when I ever got stuck!

**iii. growth**

 

“I wonder if this could be a good thing.” And Dennis has to laugh. He barely has time to process who’s saying it, but he still has to laugh. Dr. Eddy raises her eyebrows at him when he does. Then, she sighs when he doesn’t offer a further answer. “I know it feels different and scary, but Mac needs space. And maybe you do too.”

“We’ve tried this before,” Dennis replies automatically. 

“How did that go?”

“ _ Not great _ , Doc.”

Dr. Eddy hums thoughtfully. She nods and writes something down. “You’ve heard of the term co-dependency?” She asks without looking up. 

“Yes,” Dennis says through gritted teeth. 

“You’ve heard it used in the context of your relationship with Mac?”

Dennis rolls his eyes, but he nods. “Yes,” he mumbles.

“What about  _ sonder _ ?”

Dennis furrows his brow before he looks up at Dr. Eddy, who’s still writing something down in her notes. “What is this?” He asks. “Are you grading my vocabulary now?”

“It’s the realization,” she starts, ignoring him entirely. “That everyone around you is quietly leading a life as vivid and complex as your own.”

Dennis takes a deep breath, says: “That’s…” He intends to say that can’t be true. He thinks of his own head, running wild without a second thought of how hard it would be for the rest of him to keep up. He imagines the storm under his own skin, raging constantly, never giving him a moment to rest or clean things up. Then… He thinks of Mac.  _ There’s a storm inside of me. And it’s been raging my whole life _ . He thinks of Mac, just as disoriented and desperate to keep things still and safe. So, instead of claiming that can’t be true, he says: “That’s  _ horrifying _ .” He thinks of Dee and Charlie, as fucked-up or more, all dealing with their own shit in their own ways. He thinks of Mandy, living her own happy life in North Dakota, taking care of Brian Jr. and still finding the time to reach out and call him, talk to him,  _ look out for him _ . He thinks of his mother, and… and  _ Frank _ . And, nope, no way. No way in hell. He cuts that thought off where it is. 

“You have very complicated feelings, Dennis,” Dr. Eddy says, bringing him back. “And look at all the work we’ve done to try to face and understand those feelings.”

Dennis nods, mutters a meek, “Yeah.”

“Mac has complicated feelings too,” she continues. He looks up at her and she smiles. “Now, he’s just putting the work in.”

 

—

 

It’s been a month since Mac left. He hasn’t found a place yet. Dennis doesn’t listen to the conversations Mac has with Dee about it, but he knows that much. 

Mac comes into the bar a little less frequently. Still, at least four times a week, but he comes for work and gets out as soon as they close up shop. It feels worse than it probably is because even when Mac is here, to Dennis, it feels like he isn’t. They don’t talk to one another. Not really. They’re both a part of the same conversations, but they don’t actually  _ say anything _ to each other. 

It makes Dennis feel like he might just self-destruct. Bubbling emotion always makes its way to the top and he’d generally direct it all at Mac. Give whatever was too heavy for him to carry alone to Mac. But now Mac doesn’t even look at him. So Dennis has to swallow it down. Hold it close to his chest and hope it doesn’t crush him. 

“I have a date tonight,” Dennis hears Dee tell Mac. They stand close to one another, as if they’re conspiring. They’re both smiling, and Dennis feels decidedly on the outside. “So can you lock up for me?” Dennis keeps his eyes down on the bar in front of him, watching the washcloth in his hands do tight circles on the mahogany, polishing it just to have it get dirty again tomorrow night. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Mac says. Dennis furrows his brow. He should be angry. He should be calling Dee out for trying to trick him into doing more work. But he just sounds… supportive? “You owe me, though.”

“Yeah, sure, Mac,” Dee says dismissively. “I owe you. So, when you have a date, I’ll  _ totally _ lock up the bar for you.”

“I could have a date!” Mac defends, and there’s that anger Dennis had been expecting. “I could have a date, you don’t know that! Screw you, Dee!”

“Later, boner!” Dee says, flipping the bird over her shoulder as she goes. 

Fuming, Mac clenches his hands into fists. 

“Don’t worry about her, dude,” Dennis finds himself saying. Mac spins on his heel to face him. It’s one of the first times they’ve spoken directly to each other, and that isn’t lost on either of them. “She’s a bitch.”

“A total bitch,” Mac mutters. 

He sighs, looks away from Dennis, and hitches his hands on his hips. He looks like he might be about to say something, but then Charlie and Frank are scrambling out of the back office, nearly falling over one another. Charlie’s already ungracefully trying to slip out of his tied shoes as he goes. 

“Holy shit, Frank!” He shrieks. “This is huge!”

Frank isn’t far behind him, trying and failing to pull his shirt up over his head. “We gotta get there before the Bridge Men do, Charlie!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dennis calls after them. They momentarily stop. “What the hell, guys?”

“What?” Charlie asks. 

“We haven’t even closed yet and you two are already stripping, to, to what, exactly? I assume it has something to do with the sewers,” Dennis explains emphatically. He honestly can’t quite believe these are words coming out of his mouth, but here they are.

“Dude,” Charlie says, rubbing his hands together. He steps towards the bar. Frank does too. They’re both lit up with excitement. “Word on the street is that Jimbo died in the sewer under Jefferson Street last night.”

“Jimbo?” Mac asks. 

“I don’t know who that is,” Dennis says. 

“He’s the Big Crab,” Frank explains, as if that answers their question. 

Dennis drops his head towards the bar, sighs heavily and mutters: “I already regret this, but, the what?”

“The Big Crab, man,” Charlie says. “The biggest sewer crab anyone’s ever seen in Philadelphia. Do you even know how much meat that sucker will have on him?”

“I really don’t,” Dennis says. 

“I don’t  _ care _ ,” Mac tries. 

“Oh, so much meat, dude!” Charlie says. He laughs and pulls Frank into a hug. “We are going to be eating like kings tonight!”

“How are either of you not dead?” Dennis wonders aloud. 

“Hey,” Charlie defends. “You know, we don’t come into your house, telling you what you should or shouldn’t eat, you know?” Dennis rolls his eyes. “You can have your refined palette or whatever. Leave us to eat off our own palette. A  _ better _ palette.”

“You don’t even know what a palette is!” Dennis starts, then thinks better of it: “Oh, goddamn. You know what, I don’t care. You two go scour the sewers. Mac and I will stay here,” he says, and then he freezes. The gravity of the situation suddenly hits him. If Frank and Charlie leave, he and Mac will be left here alone. It makes his throat close up, but still, he manages to add: “To actually do our damn jobs.”

“Yeah,” Mac tacks on feebly, coming to the same understanding as Dennis at what feels like the exact same time. 

Charlie and Frank don’t even seem to  _ see it _ . As soon as they’re given the go-ahead, they shoot out the back door, half-naked. The door swings shut behind them and their joyful shouts descend down the alleyway. 

The bar’s impossibly quiet. One of their regulars is still here. Slumped over in a booth at the back. Passed out, snoring quietly. But Dennis can barely hear him over the pounding of his own heart. 

Mac keeps his eyes pointedly down at the ground. Anywhere but on Dennis. He shuffles in place awkwardly, then he looks up at Dennis. Their eyes meet, and Dennis suddenly feels the urgency. He has to get out of this. 

“You know, I could lock up…”

But Mac’s talking over him: “Dee asked me to lock up, so…”

They both stop at the same time. Dennis swallows down the urge to smile. They’re always on the same page. Even when they’re at odds. “I’m almost done,” he manages. “So, I’ll get out of your hair.”

Mac nods, starts to play with his hands. “Cool,” he mumbles awkwardly. 

Dennis gives the bar a final once-over before he drops the wash cloth, rubbing his hands down on his jeans. Mac shuffles towards the broom and dustpan, still fidgeting. He still looks like he wants to say something, so Dennis takes his time grabbing his jacket and heading towards the door. 

_ Say something, say something, say something _ , he thinks as he reaches for the doorknob and he isn’t sure if he’s talking to himself or to Mac. He turns the knob and throws a soft: “Night, Mac,” over his shoulder, hoping that will jar something loose. 

And it  _ does _ . Mac steps forward. “Dennis, wait.” Dennis listens. He stops, turns towards Mac and waits. Mac chews on his lip. “How did you find our apartment?” He asks. And maybe it isn’t the conversation Dennis wants to have, but it’s  _ something _ . So he lets go of the door and steps closer to Mac. “You know, when we first moved in. I can’t find  _ anything _ , man.”

Dennis smiles sadly. He thinks of the spare room, Mac’s room, still empty, and thinks:  _ just ask me, you idiot. _ Just  _ ask _ to move back in. “Uh, craigslist,” he says. 

“Craigslist?” Mac asks. “Isn’t that site for hook-ups?”

“It has other things too,” Dennis says, rolling his eyes. 

“Huh,” Mac ponders. “But it does have hook-ups, right?”

Dennis sighs. “Are you actually asking me about the apartment, Mac,” he starts. “Or are you asking me how to hook up with dudes?”

“No!” Mac defends quickly. “I know how to hook up with dudes, Dennis. Trust me.” He’s coming in hot, and Dennis can’t help but feel a little jealous. 

He nods, bitterly. “Right. You getting a lot of dick living with your Mom?”

“You don’t even know,” Mac says, jabbing his finger in Dennis’ direction. He steps closer. They’re both angry, but Dennis can’t help but notice that this is the closest they’ve come to touching in a month. “I get dick all the time, dude. Whenever I want.”

“Sure,” he says smugly, as if he also hasn’t been with anyone since Mac moved out. And he doesn’t even have the excuse of sharing a roof with his mother to explain that fact away. “I can totally see how the overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke can really set a mood.”

“Screw you,” Mac says harshly before returning back to his job sweeping, which they all rarely do, so Dennis knows he’s just avoiding him. 

Dennis suddenly has the thought:  _ how did they get here _ ? Mac had asked for help apartment-hunting and somehow they’d ended up in some jealous tiff. Why did they always get here? Dennis rubs at his forehead. Wants to start over, but wonders if there’s just too much bad blood between them now for that to ever happen. 

“I don’t want to fight with you, Mac,” Dennis finally says. 

“You don’t?”

“No,” Dennis answers truthfully. Mac’s looking at him again, looking for honesty and shocked to actually be finding it. “I think I’m just still a little…” He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to sound like the defeated one. “This still just feels new, and I’m a little…”

“Yeah,” Mac says, as unable to come up with a word as Dennis is, but somehow still feeling it in his bones. “Maybe it hasn’t been as easy as I thought it would be.”

“Yeah,” Dennis agrees, except he’d never thought it would be easy. So, instead of starting yet another fight, Dennis says: “I get it though. I get why you needed some space.”

“You get it?” Mac repeats, as if maybe that’s some insight Dennis can let him in on. 

“Yeah, dude,” Dennis offers. “You have to do what’s best for you sometimes. And…” He gestures vaguely at himself and shrugs. “And if that sucks, then… it sucks.”

Slowly, Mac sets the broom and dust pan up against the pillar in the middle of the bar. He sighs and grabs himself and Dennis a beer. He sits on one of the stools and leaves Dennis’ beer in the spot beside him. It’s a peace offering if Dennis has ever seen one. So, he sits. He sits next to Mac and they’re close enough that their knees knock slightly if they move too much. 

Mac twists the top off his and downs nearly half of it. “Maybe…” he starts. Dennis leans towards him. “Maybe I went a little too far when I said we couldn’t be friends.”

Dennis inhales sharply. He looks away, finally realizes he’s got a beer in his hands and takes advantage of it. He feels Mac watching him, but he can’t bring himself to turn back towards him. “Yeah,” he manages. 

“Just because we aren’t roommates doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” Mac offers. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says again, but it doesn’t make him feel happy. 

Mac watches him carefully. He chews on the inside of his cheek, then picks at the label on his beer bottle. “You’ve been okay though, right?” He asks. It’s pointed and sincere, but he can’t even ask it to Dennis’ face. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says, realizing that’s the only thing he’s been able to say for the last few minutes. His throat feels too tight. Like if he says anything else, he might just open the floodgates and not be able to shut them. Mac’s watching him again, as aware, if not more, of the storm brewing just under his skin. “Yes, Mac,” Dennis says, trying to keep his voice stern. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Okay,” Mac says, but Dennis knows he doesn’t buy it. “I probably still will,” he concedes. And Dennis actually smiles. He  _ knows _ he will. He  _ likes _ that Mac will. Mac shrugs and repeats himself: “I probably still will.” His voice lower the second time. Keeping a promise to himself. 

“This is good,” Dennis says. He clinks the neck of his bottle against Mac’s. “Friends is…” He pauses. Thinks, being friends again is a step in the right direction.  _ Definitely _ . Maybe it isn’t enough, but it’s something. “It’s good.”

Mac smiles, returns Dennis’ gesture, clinking their bottles together again. They both turn in their stools to face forward. They polish off the beers and take their time locking up. 

 

—

 

They decide that starting over essentially means hanging out one-on-one. And tonight is night one of the little experiment. No more hiding in the inane conversations that the gang would always have at Paddy’s. It’s simultaneously the most exciting and terrifying thing that Dennis has ever been a part of. 

There’s no plan put in place for their casual  _ friend _ hang-out. All Dennis knows is that he’ll be seeing Mac alone and that’s enough to make him feel sick. 

It’s been so long since he’s considered Mac a  _ friend _ . He was always something more. Something more than what Dennis had with Charlie, or any of the assholes he hung out with in high school. Mac was always  _ more _ . But they had to start somewhere. And that somewhere was  _ friends _ . 

But what do friends do? They don’t do Monthly Dinners. They don’t do Weekly Movie Nights. They don’t constantly flirt with that line that separates friends from… Whatever could come next. 

Dennis looks at his phone. Wants to text Mac for help. Wants to ask him what he thinks is best. What had they done when they were kids? Before they grew up and felt things. Had there ever been a time when they hadn’t felt something different between them? Something more electric than anything they’d each ever experienced. 

Dennis drops his phone back down on his mattress and paces. He hates how loud things seem in the empty apartment. He can  _ really hear _ his own footsteps as they anxiously dig divots in the floorboards. His wrings out his hands. Just listening. His own anxiety’s got damn anxiety. He’s just starting to do some real damage to his thumbnail, chewing at mercilessly, when his phone vibrates. 

He sees Mac’s name and involuntarily holds his breath. 

 

**Mac**

whats the plan tonight?

 

Dennis is still holding his breath. Suddenly realizes that he couldn’t release it even if he wanted to. His chest constricts and all he can do is suck more air into his lungs. He feels his body wrack; his hands go numb and cold at the same time. He tries to think of Dr. Eddy. Tries to think of the techniques she’s taught him to get him through what Dennis has had to admit is panic. 

He rereads the text, blinking back against the way his eyes have started to water. 

He thinks Mac sounds so calm.  _ What’s the plan? _ It sounds exactly the way that this should be: it sounds casual. And Dennis can’t understand that. He can’t  _ fathom _ that. He can’t understand why Mac would  _ want _ this. Why would he want to be friends? Why wouldn’t he want more? Why wouldn’t he feel like he had to constantly chase after the high he’d felt when they touched each other for the first time? How could this—how could  _ friends— _ be enough?

He rubs at his temples. He could probably be a little more gentle with himself. He sits down on the edge of the bed, crosses his arms over his chest and lets himself rock forward and backward, minutely, knowing full-well he’s letting himself fall into this black hole of panic. But he doesn’t care. He lets it rush through him, from top-to-toe. Lets it win. He loses track of his breath; it’s sharp and fast and unhelpful. 

He digs his fingernails into his palms. Feels pain and holds onto it. 

“Come on, come on, come on,” he mutters to himself, pressing the fine lines of his nails deeper into his skin. 

His phone vibrates again. 

 

**Mac**

den?

 

He snatches it up from the mattress. Holds it tight. He wants to call Mac. He wants Mac to  _ be here _ . He should be here. He thumb hovers over the call button for what feels like ages before he drops the phone back down on the bed. He stands. Feeling antsy all over again. 

Mac should  _ be here _ , but he isn’t. So Dennis resigns himself to deal with this on his own. Like everything else in his damn life. He strides towards the bathroom. He’s sick before his knees even hit the ground. 

It isn’t until he’s got his cheek against the porcelain, sputtering and exhausted, that he realizes his breathing’s gone back to normal. He supposes his body had something a little more important to be dealing with. 

He sighs, thinks,  _ Mac should be here _ . Then, he pulls himself up off the tile floor and shuffles back into his bedroom. He picks up his phone; there are three more messages from Mac. 

 

**Mac**

oh!

 

**Mac**

i have an idea

 

**Mac**

pick me up in ten

 

The last message is from over ten minutes ago. 

He’d thought coming into a blown up phone would make him anxious. He’d thought it would make him want to disappear. But it really just makes him smile. Because Mac doesn’t sound  _ casual _ anymore. He sounds  _ excited _ . 

 

**Dennis**

Leaving now. 

 

Mac sends him back a thumbs-up emoji and Dennis can’t wipe the smile from his face all the way downstairs, into the Range Rover, across town, even after Mac gets in the passenger seat next to him. 

 

—

 

Mac stops in front of the bar he’s chosen, gestures towards it, smiling wide. 

Dennis gapes, at the bar, and then at Mac. 

“It’s a sports bar,” he says. 

Mac visibly deflates a little, but tries to keep his energy up. “Yeah?”

“You hate sports bars,” Dennis says. “You call everybody inside a jabroni and then they kick us out.”

“No, no,” Mac answers quickly. “We won’t get kicked out of this one.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’ll behave,” Mac says with a smile and Dennis can’t help but smile back. He doesn’t really know what to say. So, instead of waiting for Dennis to find the right words, Mac launches into a hasty explanation. “We don’t have to stay,” he starts. “You just… You started in with that fantasy league bullshi—…  _ Stuff _ .” Dennis raises his eyebrows at him, thinks,  _ nice catch _ , and he’d actually maybe appreciate it a little more if he was still into all that economy shit in the first place. “And I heard that, like, every game counts, or whatever. So I figured we could step your game up a little and watch it in a real sports bar.”

“But the place is going to be filled with jabronis,” Dennis says, egging Mac on, and it totally works. 

He sighs heavily, looks disappointed. “I know.”

Dennis smiles, puts his hand on Mac’s shoulder and guides him inside. 

The place  _ is _ full of jabronis. Assholes in snap backs and official jerseys. They’re all already loaded, spewing beer and spit across the tables as they try to have halfway coherent conversations. 

They order a pitcher of beer, ignore the waitress when she asks if they’d like two glasses, and clarify that they’d like a pitcher  _ each _ . 

There is a baseball game going on somewhere behind Mac’s head, but Dennis doesn’t watch it. Mac doesn’t watch any of the outrageously numerous amount of televisions up on the walls around them either. They’re zeroed in on one another. And it’s fun. It’s easy. And Dennis has had just enough to drink to not feel sad about how easy it is. Enough to drink that he doesn’t think about how much he’s missed this. Instead, he just lets himself enjoy it. And it looks like Mac is allowing himself the same thing. 

They’re laughing, all through their drinks, through the bucket of sweet potato fries Mac somehow convinced Dennis to order, right through to their walk back out towards the Rover. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad, dude,” Mac says, as they step out onto the sidewalk. 

Dennis looks over his shoulder, at Mac, who’s a few paces behind him. Not looking where he’s going, he bumps into a group of jocks out smoking. 

“Watch where you’re going, asshole,” Dennis hears one of them say, but he doesn’t pay them any attention. He unconsciously pats the arm of the guy he’d bumped into, keeping his eyes behind him, on Mac, who’s still smiling up at him. 

“Yeah. We didn’t even get kicked out. That’s improvement, Mac,” Dennis says, then he feels hands on the lapels of his jacket, grabbing him, then shoving him. 

“I said watch where you’re going,” one of them repeats. 

“Hey, whoa,” Dennis hears Mac say. 

Dennis stumbles slightly, but finds his footing. There’s a guy still clinging to his jacket, his face close enough that Dennis is pretty sure he could guess the type of beer the guy had on his breath if they stayed this close for much longer. 

“Take it easy, pal,” Dennis says, trying to push the guy’s hands off of him. 

“Don’t touch me, faggot,” the guy retorts, slurring his words. He gives Dennis another good shove for good measure. But Dennis sees red. He’s sobered up by just how much anger courses through his system. 

“What’d you call me?” He demands. 

Then, Mac’s next to him, and he’s wrapped his hand around Dennis’ wrist. “Den, come on.”

“You heard me,” the asshole says. He looks triumphant, like somehow he’s won, and they haven’t even thrown punches yet. Dennis wants to knock his teeth out. He tries to wriggle out of Mac’s grasp. 

“Just let it go,” Mac says, and his voice seems to cut through everything. 

Dennis pauses, looks at Mac. Their eyes lock. Dennis doesn’t want to let it go. And Mac knows it. He knows full-well that this is going to escalate and that he can either be a part of it, or not. And when has Mac ever walked away from something Dennis got them into? Dennis’ eyes trail down from Mac’s, down to his chest. Strong and sturdy, in a way it’s never been. Then, he reaches out and runs his hand down Mac’s bicep, squeezes it slightly, reveling in just how much work Mac’s put into his body. Dennis got them into this, but Mac will be able to get them out. 

“You heard what he called me,” Dennis says, his voice low and ready to draw blood. 

“I heard him,” Mac allows. 

Dennis lets his hand continue to trail down towards Mac’s. He runs his thumb over Mac’s knuckles. “Then let’s make sure he never does it again.”

“There are five of them, Den,” Mac says, glancing over Dennis’ shoulder. 

“You can take ‘em,” Dennis continues. 

Mac stands a little broader and Dennis knows he’s got him. His eyes leave Dennis’ and he zeroes in on the guy he wants to hit first. He steps forward, in front of Dennis. 

“You wanna say it again?” He asks. The guy takes him in, assessing the risk of a brawl with a guy Mac’s size, then glances uneasily towards his friends, but they all step forward too, backing him up. Dennis does the same, stepping close enough to Mac, that he can feel the adrenaline pouring off of him. Dennis balls his hand into a fist, releases and repeats. He hasn’t got to hit anybody in a long time. 

“I guess we’ve figured out who gives it and who takes it, huh, boys?” The guy asks, looking over his shoulder at his friends, who all laugh right along with him. 

He barely has the chance to turn his head back towards Mac before Mac lands the first punch. It’s hard and merciless and Dennis thinks he might have heard something crack. He doesn’t have time to wonder if it was Mac’s hand or the guy’s face because the thing breaks out quickly and gets out of hand even quicker. 

Dennis definitely takes more punches than he gives out, but he doesn’t mind. It’s  _ fun _ . The night’s still fun, and the adrenaline won’t let him stop smiling, even when there’s blood in his teeth. 

Security’s on them before anybody can get hurt seriously, pulling them all apart. They’re getting shoved down the sidewalk, but Mac’s still raring to go. He’s pushing against the bouncer’s strong arms around his middle, jabbing his finger uselessly at the group of people watching this all go down. 

“You’re all a bunch of jabronis!” He shouts after them. 

Dennis hears the security guard say: “Alright, you’re outta here, pal. And don’t think you’ll be coming back any time soon.” And he has to laugh. 

Different circumstances, maybe, but same outcome. Cross yet another sports bar off the list of places they’re still allowed to patron. 

They’re closer to their old apartment, so Dennis takes them there to clean up a little bit. 

Mac takes in the place when he steps inside; it’s the same in every way, but something feels decidedly missing. It gives Dennis pause, the way Mac takes in all their old things. Like he really misses them. Like, maybe… Maybe he’d want to come home to these things every day again. 

“You should sit down,” Dennis says, pointing out towards the couch. “I’ll get some ice.”

“Yeah, cool,” Mac says, playing with his hands awkwardly. 

But he listens. He does sit. He sits on the far end of the couch. Carefully and gently, like the place is a museum. He plays with the frayed fabric on the arm of the couch while Dennis collects some ice and whatever medical supplies they have in the kitchen. Which really isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing.

Dennis sits down on the couch next to Mac. Mac watches him. He’s sat in the middle of the couch. Close enough to Mac that if he really wanted to, he could reach out and touch him. But he doesn’t. Instead, he holds out his hand to Mac. Mac looks down at his outstretched hand, then back up at Dennis. 

“You’re bleeding,” Dennis says, gesturing down at Mac’s hands in his lap. His knuckles are bloodied and bruised. 

“So are you,” Mac says. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says with a shrug. Since Mac seems to be taking his sweet time, Dennis reaches out for Mac’s hand, tugs it forward gently, so he can wipe at it with an alcohol swab. Mac winces, squeezes Dennis’ hand involuntarily. “Sorry,” Dennis mumbles. 

“It’s okay,” Mac says, watching Dennis’ hands work across his own. 

Dennis keeps his eyes down on their hands too. They both look so fragile and delicate, soft and unsure. It’s so readily different from where they’d just been. Dennis feels like he could choke on the intimacy of it all. 

“Jocks, am I right?” Mac says; he laughs gently, so Dennis looks up at him. He smiles and nods, allowing that. “Got no gaydar either. They’re gonna call  _ you _ the f-word when I was right there,” he says self-deprecatingly. 

He shakes his head ruefully and Dennis feels a tightness take over his chest. He looks back down at their hands, continues to wipe at the splits on Mac’s knuckles. They look raw and ugly, and Dennis had asked him of that. And Mac thinks it was for nothing. 

“They weren’t wrong, Mac,” Dennis mutters. 

“What?” Mac asks. His hand goes rigid in Dennis’. 

Dennis feels himself start to go red. He shrugs dismissively. “I mean…” He laughs awkwardly. “I’ve had a dick in my mouth a few times, pal. I don’t think that exactly paints me as straight.”

He looks up in time to catch Mac shaking his head. “Mine doesn’t count,” he says. 

“Why not?” Dennis asks. 

“Because you were just…” He shakes his head again, and Dennis holds his breath. “You were just trying to be nice. You’re not…”

“Not what?”

“You’re not gay,” Mac says simply. “If you were…”  _ We could have been something _ . He trails off, and Dennis just lets him. He swallows hard, wants more than anything to say something, but he’s afraid that if he does, everything will just fall apart. Dennis presses ice to the black and blue on Mac’s knuckles. He hisses, but doesn’t pull away. 

“I’m sorry,” Dennis says again. And he’s got a lot to be sorry for. 

But the one that hits him the hardest, is that he and Mac have known each other for so long, and they’ve never been able to love one another at the same time. 

Then, Mac is pulling his hands away from Dennis. He takes one of the alcohol swabs and tears it open. He keeps his eyes down and focused, like he’s building himself up to something, then he turns to Dennis. He holds up the alcohol swab, keeping his intentions obvious and kind, as if Dennis is a wild animal who might get skiddish if he moves too fast. 

“Can I?” Mac asks. “That dude split your lip,” he explains. 

“Oh,” Dennis says. He leans forward slightly. “Yeah.”

Mac reaches out for him, traces his thumb across Dennis’ lower lip. The layer of alcohol between their skin makes Dennis wince for more than one reason. He watches Mac, whose eyes are hard and keen on Dennis’ lips. Maybe not for the reason Dennis wants, but it’s just enough to have him this close. 

“That’s gonna swell like crazy,” Mac mumbles. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s not gonna be pretty,” Mac says. 

“You saying my lips  _ are _ pretty when they’re not split in half?” Dennis asks, smiling against Mac’s fingers. Mac rolls his eyes, but he smiles too.

“Shut up,” he mutters. 

They end up deciding that Dennis is too drunk to drive Mac home. So they set him up out on the couch. Because that’s what  _ friends _ do. 

 

—

 

“Dennis,” Mac says over breakfast the following morning. “I think you maybe were trying to come out to me last night and I wasn’t good about it.” He looks up at Dennis. Stern and unwavering in his apology. “You were trying to say something important and I just wanted to move past it.”

“It’s okay, Mac,” Dennis says. 

“It isn’t,” Mac says. “But if you’re not angry, then that’s fine too.”

Dennis pushes his food around a little more on his plate. He doesn’t know who he’s trying to fool. Mac knows his eating habits better than anybody. 

“Therapy’s good for you, Mac,” he starts, his eyes still down on his pancakes. “It’s making you better,” he adds, knowing full-well that there isn’t room for  _ better _ in his own life. Mac will keep growing. He’ll keep flourishing. And he’ll want to leave Dennis behind. That’s just how things will work. 

“Look, Den,” Mac says. Dennis hears the legs of the chair scrape against the linoleum floor. Mac’s standing and Dennis feels like he might be sick. “I gotta go,” he starts. “But I had a really nice time last night.” Dennis nods, wiring his mouth shut, biting down on the word  _ stay _ clawing its way up his throat. “We should do it again.” He pauses, waits for Dennis to look up at him. “If you want.”

Dennis swallows hard. “I do,” he manages. 

Mac smiles; it’s small, but genuinely happy. “Cool,” he says. 

He grabs his jacket from where it’s still sitting, draped over the arm of he couch. He crosses the apartment, heads for the door, and then pauses at the table. He points down at Dennis’ plate. “Please finish that.” Dennis nods, but he must not mean it, because Mac says again: “Please.”

“Okay,” Dennis croaks. 

 

—

 

“It’s been…  _ Good _ ,” Dennis says. 

Dr. Eddy smiles. She’s been nodding through Dennis’ whole story. 

“We’re just… We’re friends, I guess,” he says, nodding. 

“That is good,” she says. 

“Sometimes, I think we might, um… Be okay,” he says, nodding. It’s a better outcome than he ever could have asked for. It makes something in his chest swell. He shrugs, defenceless to it and smiles, feels like he might be beaming, but he isn’t sure. “It’s just easy. We go out, we have fun, and he’ll stay at my place.” He catches Dr. Eddy raise her eyebrows at him. “On the couch, relax, Doc,” he says, rolling his eyes. “And that’s the thing: that’s fine. It’s fine that he’s out there and I’m in my room. It feels normal.” Dennis nods, once, definitive. It is normal. It’s good and normal, and there’s no curve ball that Mac could throw him that would change his mind. 

 

—

 

The next time Mac walks through Dennis’ door, he’s carrying a duffel bag and Dennis feels his heart jump into his throat. 

“Whoa,” he says, pointing down at it. “You going to the gym, or something, bro?”

Mac glances down at the bag in his hands, then back to Dennis. He shrugs, tosses it onto the couch casually and peels out of his jacket. “I’m here all the time,” he says. “I figure I might as well keep some stuff here, you know, just in case.”

Dennis’ heart skips a beat. “In case of what?”

Mac pauses. He clearly hadn’t thought this through. He has to ponder that same question:  _ in case of what? _

“Uhhhh,” he starts, speaking before the thoughts have even finished in his head. “In case I stay an extra night, or something. Or, if we decide we wanna bro out when we’re at the bar and I don’t have the chance to grab my things for the night.” He gestures vaguely at the bag down on the couch. “Then, I have something here.”

“Oh,” Dennis says, but he can’t stop thinking about how this is their strange version of getting your own drawer at your girlfriend’s place. 

It feels… Normal for them, which Dennis knows must mean that it isn’t normal in the real world. But he can’t bring himself to care. 

“I packed that black hoodie you like,” Mac continues to explain. He opens the bag and digs out the sweater in question. “Means you can borrow it.”

Dennis chews on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “Cool.”

 

—

 

They’re watching  _ Point Blank _ for the third time that month, so Dennis isn’t even watching anymore. 

He’s got his head in Mac’s lap and his feet up on the couch, resting on the arm of the couch. He’s splaying, flat on his back. He’s nesting. As Mac watches the same thing he’s seen a million times, miming the dialogue along with Patrick Swayze. 

Dennis mindlessly scrolls through his phone. He comes across a photo from The Rainbow. It’s an event notice for a drag show going on tonight. He glances up at the clock at the top of the screen. It’s only ten. Dennis is feeling antsy; they could make it. 

He cranes his neck to look up at Mac. It’s unflattering angle, but Dennis still traces his eyes along Mac’s jawline. 

“Let’s go out,” he suddenly says. 

Mac glances down at him, returns his attention to the television for a moment, and then looks back down at Dennis. “You serious?”

Dennis shrugs, pocketing his phone. “We’ve already seen this.”

“Yeah, but it’s just getting to the good part,” Mac says, gesturing towards the screen. 

Dennis rolls his eyes, starts to shuffle his weight around so he can sit himself up. 

“Let’s go to the Rainbow,” he suggests, and that grabs Mac’s attention. He turns towards him and seems to have forgotten the movie entirely. 

“What?”

Dennis shrugs again, feigning nonchalance. “I heard there’s supposed to be some show there tonight,” he explains. “Could be fun.”

“A show?” Mac asks. “What kind of show?”

“I don’t know!” Dennis says. “You’re the gay expert. You tell me.”

“How did you even hear about this?” Mac asks. 

“Jesus Christ, Mac!” Dennis says, lying his head back down in Mac’s lap. “If you don’t wanna go, just say you don’t want to go.”

Mac pauses, long enough that Dennis glances up at him. “Maybe I could go,” Mac offers, barely containing his excitement. 

Dennis sits up again. He reaches out and tugs at the fraying edges of the sleeves on Mac’s t-shirt, smiling. Mac smiles too, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah?” Dennis starts. “You could put on a nice shirt—”

“What’s wrong with this shirt?” Mac asks. 

Dennis rolls his eyes. “Well, a quarter of it is missing,” he says, glancing down at Mac’s bare arms. “And it has the word ‘dicknose’ on it.”

“It’s  _ funny _ ,” Mac defends. 

“Is it?” Dennis stands, he feels Mac swat at him uselessly as he does. He goes to the kitchen and pulls out two beers from the fridge. 

“Well, what are you gonna wear?” Mac asks, staying where he is on the couch. 

Dennis shrugs, then vaguely gestures towards his bedroom. “I’ve got a wardrobe full of viable options,” he says. 

“You can’t wear plaid to a gay bar, dude,” Mac says. 

“Who said I was gonna wear plaid?” Dennis asks, twisting the top off his beer. He sets Mac’s down on the kitchen table, silently coaxing him over. 

“Your ‘wardrobe full of viable options’,” Mac says emphatically. 

“You really think I don’t have  _ anything _ I can wear?” Dennis asks. 

Mac shrugs, standing. “I don’t know, Den,” Mac starts, already smiling. “Why don’t you show me some of these options?”

Dennis feels a blush start to blossom in his chest. He looks away from Mac. He has to deflect this feeling. He looks down at the bottle of beer on the table, picks it up and tosses Mac’s direction. He catches it awkwardly. “You know, Mac,” Dennis starts, deciding the best way to hide his own flush, is to make Mac just as flustered. “If you wanted me to take my clothes off, all you had to do was ask.”

Mac laughs and shakes his head. He’s speechless, but dealing with it better than Dennis thought he might. 

“You want my help or not?” He finally asks, allowing his eyes to meet Dennis’. His cheeks are red, but he looks confident, in a way that makes Dennis feel warm. 

Dennis shrugs, starts to pick at the label on his bottle. “Yeah,” he says, his voice croaking and breathless. He clears his throat and repeats himself: “ _ Yes _ .”

Mac smiles, then jerks his head towards Dennis’ bedroom, beckoning Dennis to join him. He watches Dennis come closer, still smiling, so Dennis has to wonder if his cheeks are as red as they feel. As Dennis passes him, heading towards his bedroom, he feels Mac put his hand on the small of his back. And he doesn’t let go until they’re inside. Dennis goes to his closet and Mac lounges casually on the edge of his bed, watching, waiting for Dennis’ first pick. Ready to tear him apart the first chance he gets. 

Dennis cards through the shirts hanging in his closet. He tries to throw a glance over his shoulder towards Mac, sees that Mac is still just watching him, smiling, knowing he’s got Dennis more nervous than he’s ever had him before. 

“What about this?” Dennis asks, pulling out a dark blue button-up. One he knows he’s caught Mac staring at him in more than once. 

“ _ Lame _ , dude,” Mac dismisses. 

“What?” Dennis balks. “How is this lame?”

“Because you’ll button it up to your chin and keep the sleeves rolled down,” Mac explains. “This is a  _ gay bar _ , you gotta show some skin.”

Dennis rolls his eyes, turns back towards his closet and mumbles: “I’d roll the sleeves up.”

“You can do better,” Mac offers, clearly having heard him. 

Dennis continues to sift through his closet. He takes just long enough for Mac to start to get impatient. He hears him sigh, hears the springs of his mattress groan as Mac stands, then Mac is right next to him. Leaning forward so that his chest rests up against Dennis’ shoulder blades. He peers into the closet and seems to immediately zero in on some crop top Dennis has had since he lived in the frat house at Penn. He can feel Mac smiling before the guy even pulls the shirt out of the closet. 

“No,” Dennis says preemptively. 

“Why not?” Mac protests, pulling the shirt out and studying it. It’s a Penn State wrestling t-shirt, cut and styled to show just about everything. 

“Because it’s stupid,” Dennis says. 

“Where did you even get this?” Mac asks, laughing. 

“It was some guy’s in my frat,” Dennis says, waving his hand at Mac, desperately trying to avoid the conversation they’re about to tumble into. But Mac’s eyes are wide, his eyebrows shoot up his forehead and he smiles. 

“A dude in your frat gave you this shirt?” He asks. 

“Yes,” Dennis returns, rolling his eyes. 

“Wow,” Mac says, revelling in all of this. “That guy wanted to suck your dick, Den.”

“No, he didn’t,” Dennis says, ignoring the pit in his stomach telling him that it had always been the other way around. 

Mac ignores him, tosses the shirt on the bed, then returns his attention to Dennis’ closet. He pulls out a plain black tank top next. Dennis raises his eyebrows at him. 

“You don’t think that’s too simple?” Dennis asks. 

“It’s subtle,” Mac offers. He takes the shirt over to the bed and lays it down next to the crop top. “You look good in it,” he adds, and Dennis feels his heart jump into his throat. 

“I do?”

Mac shrugs. He steps back towards the closet, but Dennis holds his hand out to him. “Well, then, I might as well wear it,” he says, going for casual, but probably coming across as anything but, because Mac narrows his eyes at him. Watches him carefully. “Clearly, I don’t have as many options as I thought I did,” he tries again. “And if you say I look good in this, then I might as well just wear it, right?”

Mac slowly starts to nod. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Great, then,” Dennis says, clapping his hands together. 

Mac throws another glance over Dennis’ shoulder, towards the myriad of shirts still left hanging in his closet, but he backs down. He steps back towards the bed and tosses the tank top Dennis’ way. 

Dennis immediately starts to strip, just as Mac turns around to give him his privacy. They’ve never done that before. Dennis  _ wants _ him to look. 

“What pants should I wear?” He asks. 

Mac doesn’t turn towards him. “Uh, those black ones,” he mumbles. “The one with the hole in the knee.”

“Isn’t that kind of suggestive?” Dennis asks. 

“The gays love frayed shit, Dennis,” Mac retorts quickly. “Just trust me.”

“Okay,” Dennis allows. He finds the jeans in question and pulls them on too. Mac keeps his eyes averted the whole time. Dennis has to roll his eyes at him. “You can turn around now, you idiot,” Dennis finally says. 

Mac does, takes in what Dennis is wearing, and Dennis swears he sees him choke on the air in his lungs. So, he stands up a little straighter, giving Mac a little more confidence. “What do you think?” Dennis asks. 

“It’s good,” Mac manages. “You look good.”

 

—

 

Mac looks better than him. That’s all Dennis can think about in the cab ride over to the Rainbow. Frankly, he looks out of Dennis’ league, and guaranteed, everyone will think that same thing. 

Mac’s buzzing in the seat next to him. Dennis can’t stop his foot from fidgeting. 

Mac knows the bouncer. They get in quickly. Inside, Mac knows the bartender. And Dennis feels in over his head. Mac orders their drinks for them and that doesn’t seem strange to anyone but Dennis. 

“You come here a lot?” Dennis asks after Mac gets his change from the bartender. He has to shout over the pounding music. 

“I used to!” Mac says, just as loudly. He turns, sets his elbows up on the bar and looks out over the dance floor. He barely looks in Dennis’ direction. 

“They know what you drink!” Dennis points out. 

“They’re good at their jobs!” Mac allows. 

He stands up a little straighter, his eyes still halfway across the bar. He looks lit up. “Hey, you good here for a second?” Mac asks, but Dennis can hardly hear him. 

“What?”

“Cool,” Mac says, not even listening. He peels off from the bar before Dennis can even tell him he has no idea what he’s saying. 

“Wait, Mac! Wait, wait, wait,” Dennis says, but he’s gone before Dennis can grab hold of the collar of his shirt. “God damn it.” He stays where he is, sips at his drink, trying to play it cool. His eyes follow Mac through the crowd, but he loses him quickly. 

“You here with him?” Dennis hears someone ask. 

He looks over his shoulder towards the bartender, who’s leaning across the bar. 

“What?” Dennis asks. 

“You here with Mac?” The guy asks again. 

“Uh, yeah,” Dennis stammers. 

“I’d be careful, man,” he starts. Dennis furrows his brow, leans over the bar now too. “He’s always, like, the hottest guy in here, but he’s totally in love with someone else.”

“He is?” Dennis asks. 

“Yeah, some straight friend of his,” he says. “Total asshole from what I’ve heard too.”

Dennis stiffens. “How do you know that?”

The bartender shrugs. “We used to hook up,” he says. “And he would never shut up about this guy. Totally turned me off. But he’s got a great dick,” he continues, smiling at some memory that Dennis would rather than think about. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says, and he doesn’t even have to lie. 

“So, like, if you’re just looking for a hook-up, I’d say go for it,” he says, winking. “But emotionally? That guy’s totally taken.” Then, the bartender seems to take a moment to size Dennis up. Dennis can see the wheels turning in his head. “Where did you even come from? You’re way too cute to get caught up with guys who are in love with straight people.”

Dennis raises his eyebrows. “You sleep with all your customers?”

“Just the hot ones,” he says, shrugging. “Let me know when you need a refill,” he says. “The next one’s on the house.” He winks again, then turns towards the customers who have been waiting God knows how long. 

Dennis feels a swirl of emotion start to gain some traction behind his rib cage. There’s jealousy there. Of course there is. There always has been when Dennis meets the people Mac has been sleeping with. There’s anger for Mac abandoning him here, probably to find another dude he’s already slept with. There’s the guilt and excitement grappling with one another about Mac being so obviously emotionally unavailable to anyone that isn’t him. And then there’s… Well, the bartender was hot. There was no denying that. And Dennis could get laid tonight if he wanted to. 

Maybe he’s just horny. Maybe that’s all this is. 

He downs the rest of his drink, makes eyes at the bartender to show he’s ready for a second. The bartender smiles coyly, holds up a finger to him, tells him to be patient while he finishes up another transaction, but patience has never been a virtue when Dennis is riding a wave like this. He feels antsy. He really starts to buzz. And then he feels hands on his hips and it’s  _ electric _ . 

And then Mac’s voice is in his ear: “Play along, dude.”

“What?” He demands. 

“This stupid ‘four’ won’t leave me alone,” he hisses. “I need you to get me out of this.”

Dennis turns towards Mac, and Mac’s kissing him before he has the chance to protest any further. Mac’s hands move up from his hips, toying with the hem of Dennis’ tank top. Dennis feels goosebumps start to rise up wherever Mac touches him. It takes him a second, but he  _ plays along _ . He puts one hand on Mac’s chest and cards the other through Mac’s hair, tugging at it slightly. Mac groans into his mouth and Dennis wholly forgets why they’re doing this. 

Mac pulls away, rests his forehead against Dennis’, then his eyes are scanning the bar. 

“I think we’re clear,” he mumbles. 

Dennis tugs at Mac’s shirt, doesn’t want this to be over just yet. He glances in the direction Mac’s looking. “Which guy was it?” But Mac doesn’t even have to answer. There’s a guy about ten feet away from them, trying to feign apathy, but he clearly looks jealous as shit. 

“He’s still looking,” Dennis says, still breathless from their kiss. 

“Yeah,” Mac mutters. 

So Dennis leans forward, nips playfully at Mac’s jawline and lets his hands wander down Mac’s chest, towards his abdomen, feeling just how solid he is down there. Dennis  _ wants _ to forget why they’re doing this. He  _ wants _ this to be real. He traces kisses down Mac’s neck and finds that sweet spot. Mac exhales sharply, and as if out of instinct, he presses Dennis back against the bar. Maybe a little rougher than he’d intended to, but he’s practically on autopilot. 

Dennis hums against Mac’s skin, telling him explicitly that this is okay. It’s  _ more than okay _ . He feels Mac wrap one hand around Dennis’ waist. He’s strong and sturdy and keeps Dennis where he is. Then, Mac’s other hand is feathering along the side of his throat. He squeezes down on it slightly, enough that Dennis has to pull away. 

They look at one another, eyes dark and hooded, wondering where this could go. Wondering how they always seemed to get  _ here _ . 

“He’s gone, dude,” Mac says, his voice rough and raw. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says, tracing along Mac’s collarbone with his thumb. 

Mac’s eyes fall from Dennis’, down his chest, down to the space between them that’s practically nonexistent, then back up to Dennis. He licks his lips nervously, his mouth slightly open, as if there’s more he wants to say, and Dennis just wishes he would. 

Then, something seems to click behind Mac’s eyes. He doesn’t have to say anything at all. Instead, he leans forward, so does Dennis, until their lips come crashing together again. One of Mac’s hands go to Dennis’ cheek; his fingertips playing with the hair just behind Dennis’ ear. His thumb wipes at his cheekbone carefully. Mac’s done this before. He’s touched him exactly like this. It brings Dennis right back to college, alone and fucked-up in a house full of guys who didn’t get him the way Mac did. It brings him right back to the night they first really  _ saw _ one another. 

Dennis pulls away, his breath shaking slightly. Mac lets him. 

“Sorry,” Mac breathes out, and Dennis immediately shakes his head. “I know you don’t want to do that anymore,” he continues, and Dennis just keeps shaking his head. He’s trapped in his body the way it was his first year at Penn: shaking and nervous; bursting with manic energy until it eventually tired itself out. And Mac had always been the one to help him settle. Always the one to bring him back to a place before everything in his life went to shit. 

“No, no,” Dennis says toying absently with the front of Mac’s shirt, tugging at it, trying to keep him close. “It’s okay.”

“It is?” Mac asks, raising his eyebrows, trying to keep just how delighted by that possibility he is totally casual. 

“Totally,” Dennis says, licking his lips. There’s too much space between them and it’s making him antsy. He needs Mac right up against him. He needs that  _ right now _ . He needs to lose track of where he stops and Mac starts. 

“Okay,” Mac says, then his thumb brushes along Dennis’ bottom lip experimentally. 

Dennis puts both his hands on Mac’s hips, pulls him closer, feels Mac’s weight press him against the hard wood behind him. Mac grinds against him, slowly at first, unsure of just how far he’ll be able to take this. Dennis leans forward, kisses him with all he’s got, giving Mac his answer. 

Mac’s hand falls from Dennis’ waist, wraps around and slots into the back pocket of his jeans. Still kissing him, Dennis smiles. He’s always made Dennis feel younger and lighter, untouched by anything trying to tear him down. Slowly, Dennis shifts his hips, opening his legs a little wider so Mac can shuffle in even closer to him. 

And Mac notices. Takes that space like he owns it. He makes a noise, something hungry, somewhere deep in his throat, pressing his body against Dennis like he could suffocate him. 

“Jesus, Den,” he mumbles, pulling away just long enough to say it before he kisses down Dennis’ throat. 

Somehow, Dennis finds Mac’s hand. He interlocks their fingers and squeezes it gently. Some newfound confidence bubbles its way to the surface. He says: “We should get out of here,” and he isn’t even afraid of what Mac might say back. 

“What?” Mac says, breathless and totally powerless. 

“I’m done here, are you done here?” Dennis asks again. He brings Mac’s hand to his lips, kisses his fingers gently, then looks up at him through his eyelashes and shrugs, urging Mac towards agreement. Mac’s eyes are locked onto his. He couldn’t look away even if he wanted. They flicker with something that Dennis knows in the deepest parts of him. 

Then, Mac’s nodding. “Yeah,” he says, grinding against Dennis once more for good measure. “Yeah, I’m done.”

 

—

 

They come crashing into the apartment, still glued to one another. 

Mac shoves Dennis up against the wall next to the door as soon as it’s shut. 

“Watch it,” Dennis mutters through their kiss, the back of his head already smarting with the force of it. 

“Sorry,” Mac mumbles back, but Dennis knows he doesn’t mean it. His hands are riding up the sides of Dennis’ shirt, searching for skin wherever they can find it. 

Dennis reaches around him with both hands, squeezes his ass, pulling him closer. Mac groans into the kiss, nips at Dennis’ lower lip for good measure. He wants to be in charge of this. And Dennis wants to laugh. But then Mac puts one of his hands against the wall next to Dennis’ head, bracing himself, and cards the other through Dennis’ hair, tugging at it roughly, the way he knows Dennis likes it. And Dennis realizes he couldn’t go anywhere, even if he wanted to. 

“God, you looked good tonight,” Mac says, pressing kisses along Dennis’ jawline and down his throat. Dennis laughs, breathless and helpless. He lets his hands ride up the back of Mac’s shirt, digging his nails into the skin there. Mac sighs, and presses himself up harder against Dennis. 

“Yeah?” Dennis says, but his voice comes out as a sharp gasp. “Better than the guy you ditched me for when you disappeared?”

Mac immediately pulls away, looks down at Dennis with his eyes narrowed. “What?”

Unsure of where this reaction is coming from, Dennis tugs Mac closer to him. “When you left me at the bar,” Dennis explains dismissively. 

“I wasn’t talking to a guy,” Mac says. 

“You weren’t?”

Mac shakes his head. “It was a chick,” he says. “She was my dance partner.”

Dennis starts to go red. His eyes dart down to the floor. “Oh.”

In his periphery, he sees Mac start to smile. Then, he feels Mac trace his finger along Dennis’ jawline, until he pushes his chin upward slightly, so Dennis has to look at him. When he does, Mac’s still smiling. “Were you jealous?”

“No!” Dennis balks. 

“You were jealous,” Mac repeats. 

“I wasn’t…  _ jealous _ .”

“It’s okay,” Mac whispers before he dips down to kiss and nip at Dennis’ collarbone. “You’re allowed to be jealous.” His breath on his skin makes Dennis shiver. “I’m always, like, the hottest guy there.”

“Jesus Christ, Mac,” Dennis says, running his hand through Mac’s hair, trying to pull him away from his collarbone and throat. It’s getting him too bothered to try to defend himself against being a jealous bitch. “You sound like an asshole.”

“I sound like you,” Mac corrects. And Dennis has to allow that. He rolls his eyes and shrugs, conceding. 

He shoves Mac off him; in the middle of the living room, their mouths come crashing back together. Dennis pushes Mac’s jacket off his shoulders as he guides him backward towards the bedroom. Mac does the same for him. They trail after them like a guide map. 

The lights in his bedroom are still off and Dennis is glad for it, as he guides Mac towards the bed. They both step out of their shoes awkwardly. The back of Mac’s legs hit the mattress and he almost stumbles. But he’s stays standing. He pulls away long enough to pull Dennis’ shirt up and over his head. Mac takes one second: to take in Dennis’ naked chest, then he sits down on the edge of the bed and beckons Dennis to climb on top of him. 

Dennis places his knees on either side of Mac and sets himself down in Mac’s lap. He can already feel how hard Mac is getting through his jeans. He groans into Mac’s mouth. He feels Mac do the same. 

He grinds his hips against Mac’s. Mac’s head falls backward slowly. He sighs, and he might just look the happiest Dennis has ever seen him. 

“Fuck, Den,” he mumbles. 

Dennis kisses along his exposed neck, and Mac just lets him. He lets him do whatever Dennis wants, and Dennis feels a heat rise in his belly. He tugs at Mac’s shirt. Mac lifts up his arms to help Dennis get his shirt off. His muscles ripple as he returns his arms down to his sides. He catches Dennis staring and laughs breathlessly. 

“You look so good,” Dennis manages. “I never told you that.”

“I knew you liked it,” Mac returns with a sly smile. 

“Shut up,” Dennis says. He shoves against Mac’s chest, so that he falls back against the mattress. Before Dennis has the chance to lower himself down on top of him, Mac shuffles further up the bed, until his head is on the pillows. 

Dennis follows him, keeps his knees on either side of his body. He runs his hands up Mac’s rib cage, then steadies himself on Mac’s strong chest and rolls his hips against Mac’s. He feels Mac squeeze his thighs roughly, and he hates that he has to do it through his jeans. Dennis wants skin-on-skin. It isn’t graceful, but he crawls off Mac just long enough to slip out of his jeans. He drops them on the floor before he takes up his earlier position. 

He drops his head down towards Mac’s, their noses knock into one another. He puts his hand on top of Mac’s, sets it back where it was on his thigh. 

“You’re gonna leave bruises,” he says. 

Mac squeezes the lean muscle again, just as roughly, before he even says back: “You like it.”

Dennis doesn’t answer him. He kisses him instead. He whines into the kiss, coaxing Mac to go harder. He feels Mac’s hand tangle into his hair. He pulls hard enough that Dennis has to stop kissing him. He looks down at Mac, his neck straining slightly. 

Mac glances down their bodies for a moment, and Dennis knows exactly what he wants. He smiles coyly, kisses down Mac’s throat and onto his chest. Mac lessens his grip, but he keeps his hand in Dennis’ hair, guiding him further and further down, even though he knows it won’t take much to get Dennis to do what he wants. 

By the time Dennis’ mouth is down to his hips, Mac has both hands tangled into Dennis’ hair. He writhes in place helplessly as Dennis start to undo the button and fly on the front of his jeans. 

“You’re so good at this,” Mac manages. Slowly, Dennis opens Mac’s jeans. He traces his hand down Mac’s lower stomach, the tips of his fingers finding their way beneath the waistband of his briefs. “Fuck, come on,” he whines. 

Dennis pulls Mac’s jeans off, throws them in a pile on the floor next to his own. 

Mac watches while Dennis runs his hands up Mac’s bare thighs, riding the legs of his briefs up further. Mac inhales shakily. He props up on his elbows, needing this to happen. Needing it to happen  _ right now _ . 

“What do you say?” Dennis asks playfully. 

“Fuck you,” Mac says, collapsing back into the pillows. “Don’t do this.”

“What do you say?” Dennis asks again, raising his eyebrows. 

Mac covers his face with his hands. Dennis laughs when he shakes his head. Then, he’s scraping his hands down his face and he glowers up at Dennis. “Fuck you, you bitch.”

Dennis laughs, not expecting Mac to comply so quickly, but also not expecting  _ that _ either. 

“You’ve been getting guys way too easy, Mac,” Dennis says. “Those assholes at the Rainbow clearly have no pageantry.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mac says sarcastically. “And you’re just a goddamn thespian.”

“I could be,” Dennis says with a shrug. “If you want me to.”

“I  _ want _ you to suck my dick,” Mac says harshly. 

Dennis’ shoulders droop. He looks down at Mac, disappointed. “Jesus Christ, Mac,” he mutters. “I’m gonna suck your dick. You know I’m gonna suck your dick. Would it kill you to add some fanfare? Set a mood?”

“That  _ is _ my mood,” Mac defends. 

“‘I want my dick sucked’ is not a mood,” Dennis says, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“It sure is something,” Mac says. 

“You are the  _ worst _ ,” Dennis starts. 

“Are you gonna do it or not, Dennis?”

“ _ Yes _ . Goddamn,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Goddamn you, Mac.”

He tugs Mac’s underwear down, lets Mac kick it off his ankles himself. With as little zest as possible, Dennis takes Mac’s dick in his mouth. He looks up at Mac, his hands held in surrender. His eyebrows raised, silently asking:  _ are you happy? _

Mac shudders, and smiles, as if this is actually  _ good enough _ for him. He cards his hands through Dennis’ hair and forces him to bob his head up and down once. “Yeah,” he mumbles. 

Dennis pulls away, licks a stripe up from the base of Mac’s dick to the tip. “Unbelievable,” he mutters. “Unbelievable.” Then, he traces short, quick circles with his tongue across the head. 

Mac’s thighs instinctively squeeze together, bracketing Dennis’ face. Mac thrusts up into Dennis’ mouth, hard enough to make Dennis choke. He pulls away, coughing, sputtering. He sets his hands on Mac’s knees. It takes a moment for Mac to realize that he’s stopped. He opens his eyes and looks up at Dennis, genuinely confused. 

“What are you doing?”

“Can you give me break?” Dennis demands. He holds his hand to his throat. “I’m not a pornstar, dude,” Dennis says. “I can’t take your whole dick in my mouth.”

“You could try,” Mac offers. Dennis narrows his eyes at him. Mac just laughs. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry, dude. Okay?”

Dennis shakes his head. “Get a hold of yourself, man,” he mutters, before he licks down his palm and wraps it around Mac’s dick. He gives him a few good pumps for good measure, before he takes him back into his mouth. 

And Mac keeps his promise. He stays as still as he can. He’s careful and gentle, and Dennis knows its all for him. He just lets Dennis get to work. 

“Oh, God, man,” Mac mutters. “That’s so good. You’re so worth waiting for.”

That gives Dennis pause. He feels something crack and blossom in his chest. He doesn’t think he’s ever been told that before. Frankly, he isn’t sure he’s ever been told he’s worth  _ anything _ . 

Dennis pulls away, swallows the bitter salty taste in his mouth. He doesn’t know where the feeling is coming from, or why it’s so strong, but he suddenly wants Mac to be a part of him. He wants to lose himself to this feeling. 

He kisses along Mac’s hip bones, up his abdomen and to his chest. He pulls away to look up at Mac, who’s watching him hungrily. 

And he knows Dennis inside and out, so he asks: “What do you want, Den?”

Dennis continues lacing his kisses upward, until he’s kissing his jaw, nipping at his ear lobe. He sets his knees on either side of Mac’s hips, straddling him. Mac groans at the sudden, new friction. 

Dennis traces his finger down the middle of Mac’s chest, feels him shudder when he gets to his stomach, then he slots his hand between them to wrap his hand around Mac’s dick. Mac inhales sharply. Dennis kisses him, devouring the way Mac says his name over and over. 

“I want you to fuck me,” Dennis finally says and it sends a shiver up Mac’s spine. 

“What?” Mac says, his voice shaking. 

“Don’t make me say it again,” he says, pressing a hungry kiss to Mac’s lips. Mac opens his mouth for him, lifting his head up off the pillow to kiss him as hard as he can. Then, Dennis feels Mac’s hands wrap around his waist possessively. 

“I want you to,” Mac says, and now it’s Dennis’ turn to shake. He pulls away, looks down at Mac, whose eyes are dark and ready. “Say it again.”

There’s a shaky intake of breath that Dennis hears more than he feels. He sets his hands on Mac’s chest, pressing him deeper into the mattress. He leans forward, nips at Mac’s lower lip, then pulls away, just as Mac goes in to kiss him proper. Dennis keeps his hands strong on Mac’s chest, so he doesn’t get very far. 

Mac smiles up at him, fights slightly against Dennis’ weight on top of him, before relaxing against the pillows. Dennis smiles back down at him. He leans forward again. Mac lets him bite at his lip. Dennis kisses him, then hovers above him. Still close enough that they can feel each other breathing on one another. 

“Fuck me,” Dennis finally says again. 

Mac groans in response. He moves to sit up, and he’s so much stronger than Dennis, that Dennis doesn’t have much choice; he lifts his hands from Mac’s chest and lets Mac wrap one arm around Dennis’ waist. Mac sits up and then twists, sending Dennis down onto his back on the bed. Mac immediately climbs on top of him, pressing his fingers hard enough against his thighs that it definitely leave marks. 

Dennis feels Mac’s hand wander from his thigh to his ass. He gives it a squeeze. 

“Are you sure?” Mac pulls away from their kiss just long enough to ask it. 

Dennis nods, then he reaches out for the drawer of his bedside table. Mac knows what he’s going for, and he has a better angle, so he helps Dennis out. He fishes out a condom and a bottle of lube. Dennis wiggles out of his underwear as he does.

“Just use a shit ton of this stuff,” Dennis instructs. “It’s been a while.”

Mac nods and kisses him softly. He opens the bottle of lube, slathers his hand in it, and he looks so ready that Dennis has to shut his eyes. He feels Mac’s hands all over him. He distantly thinks: he’s done this before and had to imagine it was Mac touching him. But this is really happening. Right here, right now. 

Mac is gentle. Gentler than he’s ever been. 

“I know you’re into weird shit,” Dennis hears him say. “But don’t let me hurt you.”

“I’m not into weird shit,” Dennis says. He hisses when he feels Mac’s fingers move inside him, carefully stretching him open. 

“You are.”

“You’re not going to  _ hurt me _ , Mac,” Dennis says, finally opening his eyes to look up at him. Mac’s eyes are wide and focused. He looks nervous. “We’ve done this before,” Dennis says, sending a reassuring hand up Mac’s arm. “You know I can take it.”

“I know,” Mac says, and Dennis thinks he sounds sad. 

Dennis pinpoints it because he feels that same sadness. They’ve done this before. But never like this. They’ve done this to one another in anger, in resentment, in guilt, and in confusion. But never in love. Never mutually in love. 

Dennis squeezes Mac’s arm again, pulling him back to him. Pulling him back to this. Pulling him back to the time that feels like it might be  _ different _ . That might be  _ significant _ . 

“You won’t hurt me,” Dennis says again. 

Mac nods and then immediately pulls Dennis in for a kiss. They stay like that, close to one another, passing secrets and desires through one another’s teeth. 

Dennis knows how this works. He feels Mac press a third finger inside him, and immediately decides he needs more. He needs  _ everything _ . 

“Come on, Mac,” he says through their kiss. 

“You ready?” Mac asks, breathless. He presses a kiss to Dennis’ shoulder.

“Yeah,” Dennis answers around a gasp. “Come on, I want you so bad.” He feels Mac nod against him. Dennis scratches at his chest as Mac pulls away long enough to roll the condom on. Then, he runs his hands up and down Dennis’ chest, finally allowing himself the moment to take this all in. 

“God,” he mutters, and it sounds dangerously close to a prayer. “You look so good. I’ve wanted this for so long…”

Dennis nods. He scratches at Mac’s hips and abdomen, trying to pull him closer. “Me too,” he mutters, because he knows he’s supposed to. But he can’t even begin to fathom how much he’s wanted this too. “Come on, Mac,” Dennis whines. “ _ Please _ …”

And Mac listens. He presses himself into Dennis. Slowly and carefully. When he bottoms out, he stays where he is, and Dennis feels like he can’t breathe. Mac moves slowly and gently, his hands are all over him, soft and reassuring, watching him for anything that’s out of place. 

Dennis reaches out for him. He’s too far to touch his chest, so Dennis settles for his strong arms. Draws a line down his bicep, down his forearm, then he finds Mac’s hand and squeezes it with all he’s got. 

Mac leans forward. He keeps Dennis’ hand in his, and brings it to his lips and kisses the back of Dennis’ palm. 

“You okay?” He asks. 

Dennis nods, reaches out with his other hand to wrap it around the back of Mac’s neck. He pulls him closer. Close enough that Mac presses his forehead to Dennis’. He shuffles on his knees slightly to do it, and Dennis feels his breath hitch in his throat at the movement, no matter how small. 

Mac kisses him gently, then Dennis feels one of his hands on his cheek. “You’re okay,” he hears Mac whisper. So, Dennis just nods again. “We can stop,” Mac offers. 

“No,” Dennis all-but-gasps. “It’s fine,” he manages. He hasn’t had Mac this close in so long. He hasn’t felt so whole in so long. If he moves just an inch, Dennis will miss him too much. 

Mac nods, then Dennis feels his hand leave his cheek. It traces down his ribs, over his hip and squeezes at the sensitive skin of his upper thigh. He feels Mac slowly push his leg in towards his chest. It’s a stretch that his muscles will hate him for in the morning, but when Mac pulls out slowly and pushes back inside, it offers an angle that makes Dennis see stars. 

“Holy shit,” Dennis gasps. He shuts his eyes tight. 

He feels Mac press his weight down further on him. He feels Mac’s lips find his, but his stomach is swimming, and his breath is hitching, he can’t keep a good rhythm, but Mac doesn’t seem to mind. He just keeps kissing him, along his jaw, his temples, breathing hotly into his ear. 

Dennis digs his nails into Mac’s back, pulling him closer, deeper with every thrust. He’s moving quicker now. He’s still holding back, but it’s  _ enough _ . For now, it’s enough. He’s being so careful, so loving; something burns deep in Dennis’ chest. 

“You’re okay,” Mac says again, and Dennis feels whatever it is burst. 

He feels hot tears in his eyes. He clenches his jaw hard to keep his mouth shut. But then Mac finds that spot again, hitting it with every thrust; Dennis gasps, his mouth’s open and everything he’d been trying to hide comes tumbling out. 

“You’re good,” Mac says again, over and over. 

“I know,” Dennis breathes out, hugging him so close that Mac has nothing to do but to bury his nose into the crook of Dennis’ neck. “I know,” Dennis says again. And he knows it’s because he has Mac on top of him. He has Mac with him and he isn’t  _ going anywhere _ . He’s okay because he’s finally lost himself in Mac. “I know,” Dennis repeats, and then next one comes out as: “I love you,” before Dennis even has the chance to stop it. 

Mac tenses on top of him. Mac always seems to be the one to make it feel as though the world has split in half. Dennis holds his breath. Hopes like hell Mac will just ignore it. Hopes like hell, he’ll just pick up where he left off. 

But he doesn’t. He props himself up, far enough away that he can look down at Dennis through the hair that’s fallen over his forehead. 

“What?”

“No, nothing,” Dennis gasps. He puts his hands on Mac’s cheeks, pull him down in for a kiss. He wraps his legs around Mac’s waist, tries to pull him in deeper, tries to pull him back into the task at hand. 

“Den…”

“No,” Dennis says sharply. “Just…” He rolls his hips and Mac has to stifle a groan. He drops his head down towards his chest and Dennis feels Mac’s hand squeeze around his small waist, bracing himself, but also devotedly reminded of what he’s meant to be doing. “We’ll talk about it later,” Dennis offers. “Just don’t stop.”

Dennis can hear Mac’s voice in his head, telling him that they  _ won’t _ talk about it later, and he’s probably right. But the Mac on top of him, the Mac holding him together, doesn’t say anything at all. He just kisses him. He doesn’t say anything at all, but Dennis can feel him saying it back:  _ I love you, I love you, I love you _ . 

Dennis finishes first, as he’s wont to do. Breathing heavy, he rides out the orgasm, until he can just watch Mac, still thrusting deep inside of him, and Dennis wires his mouth shut around the words:  _ don’t go, don’t go, don’t go _ . 

Mac collapses on top of him without much warning. Dennis can feel Mac’s heart beating against his own. They’re almost in time with one another. He reaches up to play with Mac’s hair while he catches his breath. Mac presses a messy, exhausted kiss to Dennis’ temple, then he’s rolling off of him. 

Dennis sighs as Mac pulls out of him. Mac sets a steady hand on Dennis’ chest.

“You okay?” He asks. 

Dennis nods. He shuffles closer to Mac. “Yeah.”

Mac reaches out and brushes something off Dennis’ cheek and Dennis suddenly realizes his eyes are still watering. 

Mac leans over the bed and grabs whatever he can off the floor. He hands it to Dennis to clean himself up before Dennis realizes it’s his tank top. 

“This is my shirt, you dick,” he mutters. 

Mac laughs and shrugs, still tired and strung-out. “Whatever, dude,” he mumbles. “You were gonna wash it anyway.”

“You’re gonna call me ‘dude’?” Dennis asks, his eyebrows raised. “Really? Right now?”

Mac rolls his eyes. “What would you prefer? ‘Honey’?”

Dennis scoffs derisively. Mac laughs, so Dennis does too. 

“Whatever,” Dennis says. 

Still smiling, Mac hugs himself up to Dennis, resting his cheek on Dennis’ shoulder. He traces lazy circles on Dennis’ chest. He cranes his neck upward, to press soft kisses to the underside of Dennis’ jaw. 

“You get clingy,” Dennis observes. 

“ _ I _ get clingy?” Mac asks. He doesn’t have to say  _ you told me you loved me _ . It’s there, but remains unspoken.

“Shut up,” Dennis mumbles. Then Mac burrows his cheek against Dennis’ chest and gets comfortable. “We’ll talk about it later,” Dennis tacks on as an insincere promise. 

“Totally,” Mac says against his beating heart. 

 

—

 

Dennis swats at his ringing phone like it’s an alarm clock.

Coming to, he collects his bearings. “Shit,” he mumbles. He twists underneath the sheets, his feet knocking against Mac’s, and reaches out for his cell. The caller ID tells him its Mandy, so he swings his feet over the edge of his bed. 

He throws a glance over his shoulder at Mac, who’s stirred, but has kept his eyes closed. 

Standing, Dennis answers the call. 

“Hey,” he says. “It’s early.”

“Sorry,” she says back automatically. “I got excited, I forgot you’d be working late.”

Dennis heads towards the bathroom, pulls the door almost shut behind him so he doesn’t keep Mac awake. He sits down on the edge of the bathtub. From where he is, he can see Mac roll over onto his side, pulling the sheets up to his chin. 

“You got excited?” He asks. “For what?”

“Well, Mr. Eller approved my vacation time,” she says, and Dennis feels his heart race into his throat. 

“He did?”

“Yeah, so I was thinking, if you’re feeling up to it, I could use the couple days to come down to Philly,” she offers gently. Dennis feels his chest start to heave. “And I could bring Brian Jr.”

“You wanna come to Philly?” Dennis asks, buying more time to react to this the way he knows he should. He should feel excited. And he does, sure. But he also feels devastatingly paralyzed by it. 

“Well, yeah,” she says through a laugh. “But I just wanted to give you a call first,” she says. “You know…” She trails off and then takes a deep breath. “Like we talked about. I wanted to make sure that that would be something you’d be up for.”

Dennis peers through the door, out across his bedroom, to Mac, tangled up in his bedsheets. He feels like something has a stranglehold on him, but it doesn’t scare him. It makes him smile. He feels this thing, rise up in his chest, into his throat, then he laughs. 

“Dennis?” Mandy tries again. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says through his smile. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea.”

That same something warms him from the middle out. He thinks of Dee, telling him that, maybe, lately, he was better, and suddenly finally feels that way. For the first time since he’d gotten back from North Dakota. He feels back in his own skin. And he knows that’s supposed to mean he feels like  _ himself _ again, but it’s more than that. He doesn’t feel like the Dennis Reynolds he’d gotten used to, he feels better. He feels  _ built _ . He thinks of Dr. Eddy, putting the work in, and actually getting something out of it. 

He looks out at Mac and feels…  _ quietness.  _ He’s happy, he knows he is, but mostly he’s wound up by the serenity of it all. It just feels normal and content and, even if it’s just for now, it’s  _ enough _ . For the both of them, it’s enough. 

“Okay,” Mandy says, and Dennis can hear that she’s smiling too.

And Dennis suddenly realizes that there’s more. There’s more to be happy about. There’s Mandy. Someone who’d seen him at his worst and did nothing but try to help pull him out of it. Caring and strong beyond knowledge and logic; she’d just  _ stayed _ . 

And Brian Jr. The force behind it all.  _ You make me want to be better than I’m capable of being _ . That’s one hell of a motivator, especially when you don’t even know what you’re capable of. He wants to see him. He wants to hold him. He wants Mac to meet him. Properly, this time. He wants it all, and only lets himself think  _ you don’t deserve it _ once before he bites down on that and tries to bury it somewhere that it’ll have a hard time digging itself out of. 

“Okay, great,” Mandy says again. “I’ll look into tickets, then.”

“Yeah, great,” Dennis says, wondering why he always wants to go for indifferent and casual. 

“I’ll call you with a date,” she continues. 

“Yeah.”

“Dennis?” She says, and pauses. “You sound really happy.” Something catches in Dennis’ throat. And it’s catching on, because Mandy clears her throat and then laughs meekly at herself. “You just sound really happy.”

“I am,” Dennis manages. 

“I know it couldn’t have been easy,” she says. “Getting to feel this way. I wish I could have been there.”

“You were,” Dennis allows. And he hopes like hell she believes him. 

“I’m proud of you,” she says, and Dennis chokes on the air in his mouth. He can’t remember the last time anybody told him that. It was Mac, probably. Whenever it had been. 

“Yeah,” he says. Then, he clears his throat. Hears Mandy do the same, as they both try to reset. “I took your advice, by the way,” he says, casting another glance in Mac’s direction. 

“What advice?”

“I talked to Mac.” The line holds quiet. Dennis knows she’s holding her breath. “We um…” Dennis pauses. He doesn’t know what they  _ are _ . He doesn’t know what they  _ have _ . So, instead, he just says: “We’re good.”

Mandy takes a moment, Dennis listens to her silently collect herself, then her voice comes over the line, slightly hoarse and muted: “Well, isn’t that just fantastic?”

“Yeah,” Dennis says with a laugh. Then, he clears his throat again. Damn, they’re both doing a lot of that. “So. So, call me when you book something. I’ll set up a guest room for you guys.”

“A  _ guest _ room?” Mandy says, reading him like an opened book, honing immediately in on the fact that he know has a second available bedroom in the apartment. She sounds so excited that Dennis doesn’t have the heart to tell her that, technically, Mac doesn’t live here anymore. “Fancy,” she tacks on. 

“Okay, don’t get too excited,” he says. “I’m kind of shit at the whole  _ design _ thing.”

“Get your sister to help you,” Mandy offers. 

Dennis immediately scoffs. “Dee? She’s even worse.”

“Well, I don’t care how it  _ looks _ ,” Mandy says. “I’ll be happy with anything. As long as you’ve got something for Brian Jr.”

“Of course,” Dennis says. “I’ll look out for my little man.”

“I know you will,” Mandy says. She takes a deep breath then says: “Alright, then. I’ll call you tomorrow, then?”

“Yeah,” Dennis says, listens to her say goodbye, probably says it back, but he’s looking out at Mac again. He hears the line go dead before he stands and shuffles back to bed. Mac grumbles something as Dennis climbs back under the sheets. 

The bed’s still warm. That voice suddenly comes back.  _ You don’t deserve this _ . He keeps his back to Mac, curled up on his side, while Mac stays where he is: flat on his back, one arm thrown over the pillows above Dennis’ head. 

It’s too big of a wave. It’s too much of a good thing. Dennis swallows down at the anxiety trying to claw its way up to the surface. Beside him, Mac hums at something disapprovingly. Dennis is probably thinking too loudly. 

“You okay?” Mac asks, his voice still rough with sleep. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says absently. 

“Who was on the phone?” Mac mumbles. 

“Mandy,” Dennis says. “She’s gonna come to Philly for a visit.” Dennis feels Mac tense next to him, but he doesn’t say anything. So, Dennis reaches blindly behind him for Mac’s hand. When he finds it, he tugs Mac closer, forcing him to roll onto his side and spoon right up next to him. Mac buries his nose into the back of Dennis’ neck, squeezes his hand before he locks their fingers together. 

“She bringing the kid?” Mac asks into Dennis’ skin. Dennis breathes a little easier, forgetting where he ends and Mac starts. 

“Yeah.”

“Awesome.” Mac presses a sweet soft kiss against Dennis’ shoulder blades. Dennis swallows hard, prompting Mac to press himself even closer to him. Dennis feels Mac hitch his ankle between Dennis’, fitting right into all the empty spaces Dennis didn’t even know he had. 

“Should we talk about last night?” Dennis asks, his voice quavering slightly. 

“We never talk about it,” Mac says. 

“I know.” Mac lets go of Dennis’ hand. Dennis feels it splay out across his chest. Holding him there. Holding him together. “I want to do it different this time.”

Mac sighs. He pulls away, giving Dennis enough space to look over his shoulder so they can actually see one another. Dennis does what he knows he’s being prompted to. Their eyes lock and Dennis forgets what he even wanted to talk about. 

“Did you mean everything you said?” Mac asks. 

“Yes.”

Mac nods. “So did I.”

Dennis’ eyes flicker down to Mac’s chest. He feels his body start to jitter and fidget. “So, what does that mean?”

Mac shrugs. “What do you want it to mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does it mean you want me to stay?” Mac prompts. 

“Well, I don’t want you to  _ go _ ,” Dennis manages, which makes Mac smile, for whatever goddamn reason. 

“Okay,” Mac says. “So I stay.” He makes it all sound so simple. It makes Dennis feel like he’s been winded. He nods and hopes that’s a good enough answer. 

Then, Mac is leaning forward. He presses a kiss to Dennis’ lips. It’s a soft, chaste thing that makes Dennis’ heart leap in his chest. 

“So you stay,” Dennis repeats when Mac pulls away. “I can live with that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
